Smoking decline has 'hit a wall'

[Vocalek]

Survey suggests decline in smoking has 'hit a wall'


Created it as a digg so comments can be left. You might need a Washington Post login to view the story.

And on a related note...PROMISES, PROMISES: Obama tax pledge up in smoke
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D979POSG0&show_article=1

And furthermore...tobacco companies find way to sidestep the taxman
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/18/tobacco-companies-find-way-to-sidestep-the-taxman/

 

[martha1014]

I just don't understand why anybody these days would start to smoke cigarettes. If I had known then what I know now I would never had started. Back in my day just about everybody tried it and some became addicted. With all of the negative publicity and knowing how dangerous they are I can't believe the number actually rose in 2008.

 

[Snarkyone]

Let's be realistic here. Back in the day when we all started smoking it was well known then that they weren't good for us, it didn't take an Einstein to understand that smoke in the lungs is not a good thing. The message about cigarettes has been around for decades now it is not like it is some new invention that we just discovered caused cancer.

The kids today are no smarter or dumber than we were, they are acting just as we acted and our parents before us. We ALL do things and experiment in life, that is how you learn how to LIVE. I don't put a lot of faith in poll numbers either, polls can be slanted to show whatever you want really.

 

[Vocalek]

My guess would be that the number did not actually rise. The total number has averaged 46 million with a few up and down blips since 1990. My guess would be that the downward blips (including 1990) correspond to the CDC receiving some message from the administration to make a program look as if it is working well.

Year Smokers
1990 43.8
1991 46.3
1992 46.5
1993 46.5
1994 46.8
1995 47
1996 47.5
1997 48
1998 47.2
1999 46.5
2000 46.5
2001 46.2
2002 45.8
2003 45.4
2004 44.5
2005 45.1
2006 45.3
2007 43.4
2008 46

 

[K.P.]

More likely is that the number of smokers tracks fluctuations in demographics.

For example (if I remember correctly), we know most property and minor violent crimes are committed by young men (late teens to mid 20's), and murders are mostly committed by men in their mid-20's to mid-30's. Fluctuations in crime rates often coincide with the number of males in those age groups at a given time. Violent crime in America really took off in the 60's--right when the oldest baby boomers were hitting late adolescence.

If there is an overwhelmingly typical age to take up smoking (teens) and also when most people who do quit actually quit (I'm guessing mid 20's when a lot of people settle down, stop going out drinking, and are having their first kid) then the number of smokers will track those fluctuations in the population.

 

[Kimber]

I just don't understand why anybody these days would start to smoke cigarettes. If I had known then what I know now I would never had started. Back in my day just about everybody tried it and some became addicted. With all of the negative publicity and knowing how dangerous they are I can't believe the number actually rose in 2008.

If it's anything like back in my rebel days as a teenager, part of the appeal was the fact that so many were against it and would force us all to quit if they could. Then again, I guess I still have that attitude. With all of the non smoking bans on properties these days, I just switched to something I could use.

 

[redrhino]

I just don't understand why anybody these days would start to smoke cigarettes. If I had known then what I know now I would never had started. Back in my day just about everybody tried it and some became addicted. With all of the negative publicity and knowing how dangerous they are I can't believe the number actually rose in 2008.

I agree... If i knew back then what i know now.........Well i guess i be a hell of a lot healthier LOL....

 

[ladyraj]

Let's face it...we smokers who jumped on the PV bandwagon are demonstrating the same behavior we exercised when we began smoking. It's a perceived less risk product but not a NO Risk one. Same choice, same behavior. We didn't get our PVs from the Doc's office. Just my opinion...

But I agree with VocaleK...the tobacco control groups have spent an alarming amount of money to get very little reward via the actual cessation numbers.

 

[rannox]

Well being somewhat younger than most on here (23), I can say its understandable.

Not saying your generations were any different, but i think it attains the the mentailty kids have.

Wanting to fit in, emo's, metal, and any "scene" basically influences smoking just by being a part of it, and any teen+ wants to be a part of something. And the "Open" mindsets seem to attain to it as well.

I personally started as a stress/depression reliever, haha...

Just my uneducated opinion...

 

[martha1014]

I know I started smoking 40 years ago and it was definitely different than it is today. Those were the days everybody could smoke anywhere, even in the doctors office. There were advertisement on T.V., radio, newspaper and magazines. There was not the stigma attached to cigarettes as it is today. So you can say it doesn't make a difference it certainly did to me.

There was the Marlboro man who we could identify with.

 

[Pav]

My guess would be that the number did not actually rise. The total number has averaged 46 million with a few up and down blips since 1990. My guess would be that the downward blips (including 1990) correspond to the CDC receiving some message from the administration to make a program look as if it is working well.

Year Smokers
1990 43.8
1991 46.3
1992 46.5
1993 46.5
1994 46.8
1995 47
1996 47.5
1997 48
1998 47.2
1999 46.5
2000 46.5
2001 46.2
2002 45.8
2003 45.4
2004 44.5
2005 45.1
2006 45.3
2007 43.4
2008 46

Where are these numbers from? Is this for total number of US smokers in millions? If that number stayed the same while the total population increased then the perentage would be dropping. But the first article states that it's been pretty much stuck at 20% which would mean the number of smokers would rise in proportion to the population increase.

 

[crmartin]

What kids know and what they do are two entirely different things.

 

[ladyraj]

Where are these numbers from? Is this for total number of US smokers in millions? If that number stayed the same while the total population increased then the perentage would be dropping. But the first article states that it's been pretty much stuck at 20% which would mean the number of smokers would rise in proportion to the population increase.

It depends what statistics one uses. 300 million people in America but approximately 75% are adults. Thus roughly, 225 million times 20% equals roughly 45 million smokers. Teenagers are accounted for via different school surveys and have their own database.

In 1993 the population was 260 million so in the past 16 years the incidence of population growth via children born would not be reflected in the numbers because the children aren't old enough yet. If the population boom is from immigrants they may or may not be part of the database depending on their status.

The numbers have always been "hinky" because sometimes they are based on projections. I've heard for 30 years that 1 in 5 (or 20%) will suffer tobacco related illness due to their habit. Some numbers simply never change. 8-o

 

[redrhino]

Well being somewhat younger than most on here (23), I can say its understandable.

Not saying your generations were any different, but i think it attains the the mentailty kids have.

Wanting to fit in, emo's, metal, and any "scene" basically influences smoking just by being a part of it, and any teen+ wants to be a part of something. And the "Open" mindsets seem to attain to it as well.

I personally started as a stress/depression reliever, haha...

Just my uneducated opinion...

Pretty smart for a 23 year old...I wish my sister had your BRAIN couse she is 23,but acts like a 15 year old... I keep telling her not to smoke cigarettes it is a bad bad habit...But for some reason she thinks its a cool thing to do...

 

[umop apisdn]

Pretty smart for a 23 year old...I wish my sister had your BRAIN couse she is 23,but acts like a 15 year old... I keep telling her not to smoke cigarettes it is a bad bad habit...But for some reason she thinks its a cool thing to do...

She seriously smokes because she thinks it's cool? AND at 23? She should seriously reconsider her priorities in life. I started smoking when I was a teenager, but only because I was the experimental type and enjoyed it. I stopped when I stopped enjoying it and started again when I did. When I found e-cigs, I jumped right on them. I never cared what people's opinions were for any choice like that; neither should she.

 

[Mister]

I think that a global perspective is also of interest here. Although smoking has declined in some developed countries in recent decades, smoking still appears to be increasing globally.

The 2007 Royal College of Physicians of London report's summary says that:

• Most countries are at an earlier stage of the epidemic, and globally both smoking rates and mortality are rising.
• In 2001, smoking caused 4.8 million deaths, equivalent to about one in every 12 of all deaths, globally.
• By 2025 there will be an estimated 1.6 billion smokers in the world, and smoking will cause approximately 10 million deaths each year.

 

[sherid]

I just don't understand why anybody these days would start to smoke cigarettes. If I had known then what I know now I would never had started. Back in my day just about everybody tried it and some became addicted. With all of the negative publicity and knowing how dangerous they are I can't believe the number actually rose in 2008.

Oh, come on, Martha, there were warnings 40 years ago when I started smoking. Despite the big business of anti-smoking, nothing really has changed since then. Most people believe that smoking can lead to lung cancer, heart attack, and COPD. Past that, the news of smoking caused diseases gets almost comical: ED, toenail fungus, etc. etc. I believe the oversaturation of news about the harms of smoking actually leads some people to question it all. As for why people start smoking, they do it for the same reasons they always have. It looks cool in a rebellious sort of way. It gives you something to do when you feel awkward in social settings. It tastes good and feels good. It sets the young people off from their older generation and pis*** them off: something young people love to do. Most people start smoking before 18, an age when kids feel invincible, so the threat of bad health rarely enters their minds. Drive smoking further underground, and you practically guarantee a brand new generation of smokers. Older adults have an annoying habit of saying, if only I had known then what I know now: so silly, since under the same conditions and with the same mindset we had at age 18, we would probably do it all over again.

 

[sherid]

Let's face it...we smokers who jumped on the PV bandwagon are demonstrating the same behavior we exercised when we began smoking. It's a perceived less risk product but not a NO Risk one. Same choice, same behavior. We didn't get our PVs from the Doc's office. Just my opinion...

But I agree with VocaleK...the tobacco control groups have spent an alarming amount of money to get very little reward via the actual cessation numbers.

Exactly. We started smoking because it fit our personality. We started vaping because we still wanted to smoke but are getting old and facing mortality. Nevertheless, our flirtation with risk is part of what makes us who we are.

 

[Vocalek]

Where are these numbers from? Is this for total number of US smokers in millions? If that number stayed the same while the total population increased then the perentage would be dropping. But the first article states that it's been pretty much stuck at 20% which would mean the number of smokers would rise in proportion to the population increase.

The numbers are for adult cigarette smokers and they are dredged from the CDC web site. There is an annual telephone survey the smoker estimates are based on. They don't actually provide a number for every year. Some years, all they talk about is percent, but it is not clear whether this is a percent of the adult population only, or the entire population. For two years (1994 and 1996), I had to take the average between the year before and the year after, because I could not track down their number. They also mention that in 1994 they changed the method they use to do the estimates. I'll bet Forces.org has more info on this topic.

And I agree with you. I tried to dig up some population figures and do the percentages, and that wasn't working out. In 1990, for example, the population was 294.4 million, and the percent of smokers was supposedly 25.5%. But that works out to 63.5 million smokers, not the 43.8 million they claim.

The bottom line seems to be that there are a heck of a lot more smokers than the government wants us to believe there are.

 

[Bill Godshall]

The differences found in smoking rates from 2007 to 2008 in the National Health Information Survey (NHIS) are within the confidence intervals (margins of error) of the survey findings (i.e. the changes could be merely due to statistical chance).

The CDC also released another nationwide survey (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey or BRFSS) that found smoking rates continued to decline from 2007 to 2008, but the CDC chose to not publicize that survey finding (as the agency prefers issuing bad news instead of good news about smoking and other tobacco use).

Also, the CDC (and other health agencies and organizations) have chosen to not differentiate daily cigarette smoking from occassional cigarette smoking (instead they include all of them as current smokers). About 25%-35% of cigarette smokers aren't daily smokers, and as such, aren't at much risk for smoking diseases or death. But the CDC doesn't want the public to know those critically important facts either.

Below are daily smoking and occassional cigarette smoking prevalence data from both the NHIS and BRFSS during the past decade. The two surveys found similar smoking rates and trends until 2008 (when NHIS found a slight increase, and BRFSS found another decrease).

US adult cigarette smoking rates (%) NHIS
Year Daily Occassional
1997 20.1 4.4
1998 19.7 4.2
1999 19.2 4.3
2000 19.1 4.1
2001 18.7 4.1
2002 18.4 4.1
2003 17.5 4.1
2004 17.0 3.9
2005 16.9 4.0
2006 16.7 4.2
2007 15.4 4.4
2008 16.4 4.2

US adult cigarette smoking rates (%) BRFSS
Year Daily Occassional
1995 19.9 2.6
1996 19.4 4.0
1997 19.1 4.3
1998 18.5 4.6
1999 18.0 4.8
2000 17.6 5.1
2001 17.4 5.6
2002 17.8 5.0
2003 16.7 5.1
2004 15.6 5.4
2005 15.3 5.2
2006 14.7 5.1
2007 14.5 5.2
2008 13.4 4.9