Sunday, 15 June 2025

Smoking Rates Fall to Lowest Ever, Led by Our Young People and a Changing Culture

Good News Network
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– credit Muhammad Thoha Ma’ruf

Two national smoking surveys in the UK and the US which both concluded last October show that smoking rates are among the lowest ever observed.

The national smoking rates in the US based on a survey of 1.77 million people and 54,000 households are falling across the board, with the largest declines seen in America’s youth.

Places with historically lower rates of smoking saw more modest declines, while areas with higher rates saw the most dramatic declines. Seniors and those aged over 50 though were quitting at significantly slower rates than youth.

The findings were reported in a JAMA study with data collected from 1992 to 2022 to establish nonlinear trendlines that could be projected out into 2035 for the sake of informing health policy state-by-state.

Published this April, the study’s lead author, Dr. Matthew Stone, an assistant professor at UC San Diego, said that the national smoking prevalence is predicted via this data to fall below 5% by 2035 on a national level.

State-by-state, California, Utah, Hawaii, and Colorado are even projected to be significantly under the recommended target of 5% prevalence by that year.

“The rapid decline in smoking among young adults is clear evidence that the smoking epidemic will come to an end in our lifetime,” said Dr. Stone.

In tandem the UK has also made great progress, with smoking rates hovering around 11.5% nationally, and sitting even lower among 18-24 year-olds (9.8%). This equates to just 6 million adult smokers out of a population of 68 million.

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    • The question—’Do you have a history of smoking’—is almost always included on medical forms and during examinations and doctor’s visits. As a variable, it must be controlled for in all studies on the impacts of any activity on human health for the work to be considered seriously rigorous science.

    This is because smoking is linked to the incidence of and/or the worsening of virtually every major killer in the West, including cancer, heart disease, and metabolic disorders.

    Folks who are or have been non-habitual smokers or who can start and stop whenever they want may find the characterization of smoking as an “epidemic” slightly harsh, but the impact that commercial tobacco cigarette usage has had on national health systems and individuals and their families is so significant as to be unquantifiable.

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