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Drop in Smoking Rates Stalls
CDC Reports Cigarette Use Among Adults Holds Steady.
The steady progress against the leading cause of preventable death
has hit a wall.
Friday, October 27, 2006 -
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer-
Washington Post
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The battle against tobacco in the United States
appears to have stalled, with the number of adults who smoke
cigarettes hitting a plateau after declining steadily for eight
years, federal health officials reported yesterday.
The
proportion of adults who smoke held steady at 20.9 percent in the
most recent national survey of cigarette habits, conducted in 2005.
It was the first time the rate did not fall from one year to the
next since 1997, the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention in Atlanta reported The stall coincides with a
similar leveling-off in smoking rates among teenagers, suggesting
that the steady progress against the leading cause of preventable
death has hit a wall.
Health officials blamed the trend on a combination of factors,
including states cutting back on anti-smoking programs, the price of
cigarettes rising more slowly and increased advertising by tobacco
companies.
"Cigarette smoking is still the major cause of preventable death in
this country,"
said Ann M. Malarcher of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.
"We're not making the progress we need to make in terms of
preventing smoking-related illness and death."
The
new numbers were met with alarm by public health advocates and
anti-smoking activists, who noted that smoking-related illness kills
more than 400,000 Americans each year.
"This is very disturbing," said Erika Schlachter of the American
Lung Association. "We know what it takes to reduce smoking rates,
but we as a country have not yet done that."
The
proportion of adults who smoke had dropped every year since 1997,
when the rate was 24.7 percent. But that stopped in 2005, according
to the 2005 National Health Interview Survey, which involved
face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of 31,428
people age 18 and older. The survey found that 20.9 percent of
adults -- or 45.1 million Americans -- are smokers, which is the
same as in 2004, according to a report in the CDC's Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report.
A second report found that smoking rates varied widely around the
country, from a high of 28.7 percent in Kentucky to a low of 11.5
percent in Utah. Locally, the rates were 19 percent in Maryland,
20.6 percent in Virginia and 20.1 percent in the District.
Nationally, men are still more likely to smoke than women
-- 23.9 vs. 18.1 percent. American Indians and Alaskan Natives had
the highest rate at 32.0 percent, followed by whites (21.9 percent)
and blacks (21.5 percent).
One reason for the stall in the decline in smoking is that the
amount of money being spent on anti-smoking campaigns has fallen
26.5 percent from 2002 to 2006, the CDC said. States are using money
from a landmark $246 billion settlement with the tobacco industry in
1998 for other purposes.
"A
lot of the very effective programs got wiped out and cut back," said
Joseph DiFranza, a smoking researcher at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. "Now we're seeing the
result -- progress we'd been making is getting stalled."
At the same time, tobacco industry spending on advertising and
promotional activities, including price cuts, more than doubled,
from $6.7 billion in 1998 to $15.1 billion in 2003, the CDC
said.
The stall prompted advocates to renew calls for states to spend more
money on anti-smoking efforts and for Congress to pass legislation
to have the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco.
"For the sake of our nation's health, we cannot become complacent
about reducing tobacco use," said William V. Corr, executive
director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington-based
advocacy group. "We know what works to reduce smoking among both
youths and adults. What's needed is the political will to implement
those proven solutions as aggressively as the tobacco companies
continue to market their deadly and addictive products."
A
spokesman said Philip Morris USA has been trying to help smokers
quit by providing information about smoking cessation. "We agree
with public health authorities that the best way to reduce the
health effects of smoking is to quit or not to smoke in the first
place," spokesman Steve Callahan said.
Separately, the Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group, released a
poll yesterday that found 45 percent of Americans support making
cigarettes illegal.
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