Smoking rate falls below 20 percent

WASHINGTON - The number of US adults who smoke has dropped below 20 percent for the first time on record but cigarettes still kill almost a half-million people a year, health officials said yesterday.

About 19.8 percent of adults - 43.4 million people - were smokers in 2007. That was a percentage point below the 2006 figure and followed three years of little progress, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report.

Smoking and secondhand smoke kill 443,000 people annually from cancer, lung disease, heart disease, and other causes, the CDC said. Half of all long-term smokers die prematurely.

And smoking affects the economy. Including direct healthcare expenditures ($96 billion) and productivity losses ($97 billion), the economic burden of smoking on the United States hit $193 billion per year, the CDC said.

"Even though we've come a long way, there's a long way to go," said Dr. Matthew McKenna, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.

US health officials began systematically tracking smoking rates in the 1960s. When Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a landmark report on health hazards of smoking in 1964, 42 percent of US adults were smokers. His revelations triggered a long but gradual decline.

Thomas Glynn of the American Cancer Society said the rate was now the lowest since just after World War I.

Glynn cited three major recent factors in driving down smoking: smoking bans in public places, higher taxes that drive up prices, and more medications to help people quit.

The CDC said smoking causes at least 30 percent of cancer deaths, including more than 80 percent of lung cancer deaths, as well as 80 percent of deaths from the lung ailment chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

REUTERS