Smoking In U.S. Declines Sharply (Cigarette Sales At a 54-Year Low)

[onehandle]

Americans smoked fewer cigarettes last year than at any time since 1951, and the nation's per capita consumption of tobacco fell to levels not seen since the early 1930s, the association of state attorneys general reported yesterday.

Using data the federal government gathers when it collects taxes on cigarette sales, the group found a 4.2 percent decline in 2005 alone and an overall drop of more than 20 percent since tobacco companies reached a legal settlement with the states in 1998.

Association leaders and other tobacco-control advocates hailed the decline as a sign that sometimes-controversial developments triggered by the $246 billion settlement have been effective. The drop was a result, they said, of factors that include the sharply higher cost of cigarettes, restrictions on cigarette advertising and a shift in public perceptions as the dangers of smoking are more aggressively and widely publicized.

"I think we're reaching a tipping point, where the image of tobacco is that it's unhealthy and dangerous, and not glamorous like years ago or neutral like the cigarette companies say now," said Tom Miller, Iowa's attorney general and co-chairman of the National Association of Attorneys General's tobacco committee.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/08/AR2006030802368.html

People are getting poorer. Who can afford this disgusting, self-destructive addiction?

[HereSince1628]

1. Personally, I think the decline in smoke means the fire is going out

of the economy.

I wonder if there is a historical graphic for drops in disposable income vs. cigarette sales?

[THUNDER HANDS]

21. well

they did say that we're at levels now not seen since the 1930s. I wonder what the ecomony was like in the 30s....

[madmom]

2. so now I have 2 questions regarding this....

1) when is the price of health care coming down, wasn't that part of their reasoning for the high cost of health insurance?

2) when will government subsidizing for tobacco farmers escalate to coincide with these numbers?

[Toots]

4. Corporate Welfare for the Tobacco Industry will just have to increase

Give them more Tax Dollars and they can in turn Kick Back a good sum to the GOP. Quite simple how that works you know. Red States Love their Money going that way....

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Taxes.

With taxes, a pack of smokes costs $5.80 in NJ. That is hard for most average people to justify as an expense.

[radfringe]

18. collects taxes on cigarette sales

does this include canned tobacco sales? We've been rolling our own cigarettes for over a year now - buy tobacco in a can, box of cigarette tubes and it runs about $11.00 a carton

[catmandu57]

5. It's the people who can't afford it

who make up the bulk of those still smoking, my brother, his wife, are raising children, I know this isn't cheap, but they're still sucking down the cigs.

[johnnie]

6. Misleading

They don't account for the huge amount of people who are making our own. Tobacco sales aren't at a 54-year low, just the sales of packs of cigarettes. Of course they will soon start taxing the hell out of loose tobacco too.

[robcon]

8. Your post is misleading, IMO.

You offer no data or statistics to support your notion that "tobacco sales aren't at a 54-year low" Here's the data:

"...The prevalence of heavy smoking (>25 cigarettes per day) has also declined during the past 11 years, from 19.1% of smokers in 1993 to 12.1% of smokers in 2004. Tobacco-use prevention and control measures appear to be decreasing both the prevalence of cigarette smoking and the proportion of heavy smokers, who are at high risk for tobacco-related morbidity and mortality. However, to further decrease smoking prevalence among adults and to meet the national health objective, effective comprehensive tobacco-control programs that address both initiation and cessation of smoking should be fully implemented in every state and territory....

...From 1993 through 2004, the percentage of daily smokers who smoked >25 cigarettes per day (cpd) (i.e., heavy smokers) decreased steadily, from 19.1% to 12.1% (Figure). During the same period, the percentage of daily smokers who smoked 1--4 cpd and 5--14 cpd increased, from 2.9% to 4.8% and from 20.6% to 28.4%, respectively. The mean number of cpd among daily smokers in 1993 was 19.6 (21.3 cpd for men and 17.8 cpd for women) and in 2004 was 16.8 (18.1 cpd for men and 15.3 cpd for women). Among current smokers, the overall percentage of some-day smokers remained stable at approximately 18%--19% during the same period..."

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5444a2.htm

[johnnie]

9. True

I posted more of an opinion than fact.

Still, I know for a fact that more people have started making their own and I would think that it would change the statistics in the OP if this was accounted for.

[keithjx]

7. I work for the AG in Montana on Tobacco Tax,

and this report doesn't take into account the biggest problem we face in tobacco tax collection: people are buying cigarettes over the internet in astounding amounts. These sales are not taxed, and it doesn't sound like they're included in the above report either....

Just another chance for the corporations and the government to toot their own horns....
KJ

[underpants]

10. 7 months 6 days

for me

[msongs]

11. way to go!!! never do drugs again, you'll live better nt

[LostinVA]

12. Yay! Has it been that long already??? Great for you!

[onehandle]

13. Good for you.

Just remember, Big Tobacco money is overwhelmingly going to the GOP.

You are "stealing" from their coffers.

[Soloflecks]

17. That's how my son got me to quit!

He's 23 and much smarter than I am, obviously. Since all the other reasons he gave me didn't get me to do it, he resorted to "if you smoke, you're supporting THEM." Talk about a guilt trip! That, I couldn't take.

[megatherium]

14. If smoking is really dropping, that's wonderful news.

My own father died not long ago from lung cancer, the result of smoking two packs a day for 27 years. (He quit 27 years before, but alas a lot of lung cancer happens in former smokers. The odds of getting lung cancer drop when you quit, but not back to the level of non-smokers.)

[Sin]

15. 10 bucks for a pound.

Of tobacco 5 bucks for 400 tubes
= about 75 cents for a pack id say less. ( still have some left over)

So yea I'm still smokeing, Eating red meat not only that but hamburger red as well, + I'll enjoy some fine liqueur and swear while I'm doing it all :)

[crikkett]

16. It's okay, you'll be forgiven

O8)

[ecstatic]

19. convincing anti-smoking commercials, and rising costs to smoke nt

[DrGonzoLives]

20. It's an "addiction"

Meaning that you will sacrifice necessities to feed it.

Of course, the same sanctimonious types who want smoking banned everywhere except for the crawlspace under your house also don't want to help people pay for things to help them quit.

As an aside, I find it kind of funny that the prohibitions - banning smoking in public places, a steady barrage of smoking-is-bad-for-you in the media, etc. - is exactly the same kind of method the same people say we need to stop trying in combating drug use.

[megatherium]

22. You miss an important point.

Cigarette bans in bars and restaurants are meant to protect the health of restaurant workers, who have among the highest rates of lung cancer of all workers. The tobacco companies currently are directing much of their cigarette promotions to bars and taverns.

And smoking is addictive: 50% of all smokers attempt to quit each year but only a fraction of these succeed.

As far as why smoking is bad for you? According to the CDC, smoking takes 14 years off of the life of the average smoker. Fourteen years.
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/research_data/economics/mm5425_highlights.htm

I should mention: In December, I was present when my father died of lung cancer. He was a heavy smoker for 27 years, and he got the cancer even though he quit 27 years earlier. (It turns out a lot of lung cancer happens in former smokers. Quitting does lower your risk but alas not all the way to that of nonsmokers.)

If smokers aren't getting the resources to quit, please do not blame the anti-smoking folks. Perhaps you should blame the tobacco companies, and their malign influence on state legislatures. (Most of the cigarette tax or tobacco settlement monies do not go to smoking cessation/prevention programs. This is by design. Tobacco companies give a lot of money to Republicans.)