1 in 5 Still Smoke, but They’re Smoking Less
The percentage of people who smoke remained essentially unchanged from 2010 to 2011, but over time the prevalence of heavy smoking declined significantly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Overall, 19% of U.S. adults described themselves as smokers in 2011, down just a hair from 19.3% in 2010, but among those who self-described as daily or heavy smokers, the proportion who said they smoked 30 or more cigarettes a day decreased by more than 25% since 2005 (12.6% to 9.1%).
State-level funding for tobacco-control programs fell well short of CDC recommendations, as described in the November 9 issue of MMWR: Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report.
“Despite increases in excise tax revenue, state funding for tobacco control programs has actually decreased during the past 5 years,” reported Israel Agaku, DMD, of the CDC Office on Smoking and Health in Atlanta, and colleagues.
“Full implementation of comprehensive tobacco control programs at CDC-recommended funding levels might result in a substantial reduction in tobacco-related disease and death and billions of dollars in savings from averted medical costs and lost productivity,” they said.
Coinciding with the 37th annual Great American Smokeout on Nov. 15, the report emphasized the ongoing health and economic burdens of smoking: 443,000 deaths annually as a result of smoking-related illness; $96 billion in direct medical expenses; and $97 billion in lost productivity.
Action Points
Tobacco use remained unchanged from 2010 to 2011, although the prevalence of heavy smoking has declined significantly, according to the CDC.
Note that state-level funding for tobacco-control programs fell well short of CDC recommendations.
Data from the CDC’s 2011 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) provided the basis for the report. Involving a sample of 33,014 adults, the NHIS showed no significant difference in smoking prevalence between 2010 and 2011. Smokers were defined as individuals who had smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetimes and continued to smoke every day or on some days.
Of the estimated 43.8 million smokers in 2011, 34.1 million (77.8%) smoked every day. The 19% total prevalence included 21.6% of men and 16.5% of women. Smoking prevalence was highest among non-Hispanic American Indians/Alaska Natives (31.5%) and among people ages 25 to 44 (22.1%) and lowest among non-Hispanic Asians (9.9%) and adults ≥65 (7.9%).
Smoking Facts and Tobacco Statistics
1) There are 1.1 billion smokers in the world today, and if current trends continue, that number is expected to increase to 1.6 billion by the year 2025.
2) China is home to 300 million smokers who consume approximately 1.7 trillion cigarettes a year, or 3 million cigarettes a minute.
3) Worldwide, approximately 10 million cigarettes are purchased a minute, 15 billion are sold each day, and upwards of 5 trillion are produced and used on an annual basis.
4) Five trillion cigarette filters weigh approximately 2 billion pounds.
5) It’s estimated that trillions of filters, filled with toxic chemicals from tobacco smoke, make their way into our environment as discarded waste yearly.
6) While they may look like white cotton, cigarette filters are made of very thin fibers of a plastic called cellulose acetate. A cigarette filter can take between 18 months and 10 years to decompose.
7) A typical manufactured cigarette contains approximately 8 or 9 milligrams of nicotine, while the nicotine content of a cigar is 100 to 200 milligrams, with some as high as 400 milligrams.
8) There is enough nicotine in four or five cigarettes to kill an average adult if ingested whole. Most smokers take in only one or two milligrams of nicotine per cigarette however, with the remainder being burned off.
9) Ambergris, otherwise known as whale vomit is one of the hundreds of possible additives used in manufactured cigarettes.
10) Benzene is a known cause of acute myeloid leukemia, and cigarette smoke is a major source of benzene exposure. Among U.S. smokers, 90 percent of benzene exposures come from cigarettes.
11) Radioactive lead and polonium are both present in low levels in cigarette smoke.
12) Hydrogen cyanide, one of the toxic byproducts present in cigarette smoke, was used as a genocidal chemical agent during World War II.
13) Secondhand smoke contains more than 50 cancer-causing chemical compounds, 11 of which are known to be Group 1 carcinogens.
14) The smoke from a smoldering cigarette often contains higher concentrations of the toxins found in cigarette smoke than exhaled smoke does.
15) Kids are still picking up smoking at the alarming rate of 3,000 a day in the U.S., and 80,000 to 100,000 a day worldwide.
16) Worldwide, one in five teens age 13 to 15 smoke cigarettes.
17) Approximately one quarter of the youth alive in the Western Pacific Region (East Asia and the Pacific) today will die from tobacco use.
18) Half of all long-term smokers will die a tobacco-related death.
19) Every eight seconds, a human life is lost to tobacco use somewhere in the world. That translates to approximately 5 million deaths annually.
20) Tobacco use is expected to claim one billion lives this century unless serious anti-smoking efforts are made on a global level.
More than half (51.8%) of smokers and those who had quit in the past year had attempted to quit for more than 1 day during the past year.
Despite some evidence of progress toward tobacco control, smoking rates remained well above the 12% target set by the HHS Healthy People 2020 program.