Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. Between 1964 and 2004, cigarette smoking caused an estimated 12 million deaths, including 4.1 million deaths from cancer, 5.5 million deaths from cardiovascular diseases, 1.1 million deaths from respiratory diseases, and 94,000 infant deaths related to mothers smoking during pregnancy. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cigarette smoking results in more than 443,000 premature deaths in the United States each year—about 1 in every 5 U.S. deaths —and an additional 8.6 million people suffer with a serious illness caused by smoking. Thus, for every one person who dies from smoking, 20 more suffer from at least one serious tobacco-related illness.
Teenager Smoking a Cigarette
The harmful effects of smoking extend far beyond the smoker. Exposure to secondhand smoke can cause serious diseases and death. Each year, an estimated 126 million Americans are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke and almost 50 thousand nonsmokers die from diseases caused by secondhand smoke exposure.
Current smoking rates among 8th- and 12th-grade students reached an all-time low in 2009. According to the Monitoring the Future survey, 6.5 percent of 8th-graders and 20.1 percent of 12th-graders reported they had used cigarettes in the past month. Current smoking also decreased among 10th-graders, to about 13 percent in 2009. Although unacceptably high numbers of youth continue to smoke, these numbers represent a significant decrease from peak smoking rates (21 percent in 8th-graders, 30 percent in 10th-graders and 36 percent in 12th-graders) that were reached in the late 1990s.
The decrease in smoking rates among young Americans corresponds to several years in which increased proportions of teens said they believed there was a “great” health risk associated with cigarette smoking and expressed disapproval of smoking one or more packs of cigarettes per day. Students’ personal disapproval of smoking has risen for some years; for example, the percentage of 12th-graders reporting disapproval of smoking one or more packs of cigarettes per day increased from 68.8 percent in 1998 to 81.8 percent in 2009. During the same period, the percentage of 8th-graders who said it was “very easy” or “fairly easy” to obtain cigarettes declined from 73.6 percent in 1998 to 55.3 percent in 2009.
Girl Smoking E-cigarette
Current use of smokeless tobacco remained steady among 8th-graders and 12th-graders in 2009 (3.7 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively); however, current smokeless tobacco use among 10th-grade students increased significantly from 5.0 percent in 2008 to 6.5 percent in 2009.
In 2008, 28.4 percent of the U.S. population age 12 and older (approximately 70.9 million people) used a tobacco product at least once in the month prior to being interviewed. This figure includes 2.8 million young people aged 12 to 17 (11.4 percent of this age group). In addition, almost 60 million Americans (23.9 percent of the population) were current cigarette smokers; 13.1 million smoked cigars; almost 8.7 million used smokeless tobacco; and nearly 1.9 million smoked tobacco in pipes.
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