Cigarette use lowest since 1951
WASHINGTON – 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 Wednesday.
Based on data gathered by the federal government when it collects taxes on cigarette sales, the group found a 4.2 percent decline in 2005 and an overall drop of more than 20 percent since tobacco companies reached a national settlement with the states in 1998.
Association leaders and other tobacco control advocates hailed the decline as a sign that developments triggered by the $246 billion settlement have been effective. The drop was a result, they said, of factors including the sharply higher cost of cigarettes, restrictions on cigarette advertising, and a shift in public perceptions as the dangers of smoking were 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, attorney general for Iowa and co-chairman of the Tobacco Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General.
“We’ve seen a big drop in cigarette smoking, but I think we can still cut the smoking rate substantially more.”
Cheryl Healton, president of the American Legacy Foundation, a tobacco control group initially funded by the tobacco settlement, said the continuing decline suggests that the national health goal of reducing smoking rates even further by 2010 is within reach.
“We’re on target to exceed the national goal” of having 15 percent of youths and 12 percent of adults smoking, Healton said. Very few of the other national health goals adopted in 2000 appear to be achievable, she said, “but this is one battle we’re winning.”
According to federal studies, about 21.7 percent of high school students smoke, as do 20.9 percent of adults – about 45 million Americans over 18. Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of death, killing more than 400,000 people a year.
The decline in smoking began more than 20 years ago but accelerated after the settlement. Healton said it is a result of fewer people starting the habit, more people quitting, and many smokers cutting back on the number of cigarettes they smoke.
Some of those trends were unrelated to the settlement, such as the decisions by 12 states including Washington, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and hundreds of cities and counties to ban smoking in public buildings, including restaurants and bars.
Healton said the sharp increase in the price of cigarettes since the settlement – from an average of $1.74 a pack in 1997 to $3.16 in 2004 – has been especially important in reducing the number of young people who start smoking.