Experts Worry About Fading Attention to Smoking Threat

The U.S. smoking rate rose in 2008 for the first time in 15 years, and experts worry that the public has become complacent about the public-health threat posed by tobacco use, the Associated Press reported Nov. 13.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that 21 percent of U.S. adults smoked in 2008, up from 19.8 percent in 2007. Experts say that public attention to the problem has slipped as smoking rates generally declined, and that governments have cut funding for smoking-prevention programs.

Tobacco companies also are seen as resurgent and have had success in discounting its products to offset rising taxes: the average price of a pack of cigarettes rose just 2 percent annually between 2004 and 2008 after increasing 63 percent between 1997 and 2004.

“Clearly, we’ve hit a wall in reducing adult smoking,” said Vince Willmore of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

A CDC survey found that West Virginia and Indiana had the highest smoking rates in the U.S., with more than one in four residents current smokers, and Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee also had high smoking rates. Only 9 percent of Utah residents were smokers, and experts said that the states that were most proactive about preventing smoking tended to have the lowest smoking rates.