While filming 'Peaky Blinders', the prop department went through 3,000 herbal cigarettes per season. Multiply that times 6 seasons and it's 18,000 cigarettes.
Posted on 03/22/2026 2:22:32 PM PDT by Signalman
Yes, cigarette smoking is declining and has been for decades. Globally, the number of tobacco users dropped from 1.38 billion in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024. In the United States, 11.6% of adults smoked cigarettes in 2022, down from roughly 21% in 2005 and over 42% in the mid-1960s. The trend is clear and consistent, but the decline is uneven, with certain populations and regions lagging behind.
The Global Picture
About one in five adults worldwide still uses tobacco or nicotine products, roughly 20% of the global adult population. That’s a significant number, but it represents real progress. The drop of nearly 180 million users over two and a half decades happened even as the world’s population grew by about 2 billion people during the same period. In percentage terms, the shift is even more dramatic than the raw numbers suggest.
Over the past 50 years, tobacco control efforts have contributed to a 55% decrease in smoking prevalence and prevented an estimated 2 million smoking-related deaths. Still, the WHO warns that progress is insufficient to meet global reduction targets for 2030, and some countries continue to see flat or rising tobacco use rates.
U.S. Smoking Rates Hit Historic Lows The United States has seen one of the steepest declines of any country. In 2022, an estimated 28.8 million U.S. adults smoked cigarettes, representing 11.6% of the adult population. For context, that’s about a quarter of the rate recorded in the 1960s, when nearly half of American adults smoked. The drop accelerated after 2000, driven by a combination of higher taxes, indoor smoking bans, public awareness campaigns, and expanded access to cessation treatments.
Youth Smoking Is Nearly Gone Among young people in the U.S., traditional cigarette smoking has essentially collapsed. In 2024, only 1.4% of middle and high school students reported smoking cigarettes in the past 30 days, the lowest level ever recorded by the National Youth Tobacco Survey. That’s a fraction of what it was in the late 1990s, when roughly a third of high school students smoked.
E-cigarettes have replaced traditional cigarettes as the dominant tobacco product among teens. In 2024, 5.9% of middle and high school students (about 1.63 million) reported current e-cigarette use, down from 7.7% the year before. Nicotine pouches, at 1.8%, were the second most popular product, followed by cigarettes at 1.4%. The total number of young people using any tobacco product also fell, from 2.8 million in 2023 to 2.25 million in 2024.
What’s Driving the Decline No single policy explains the drop. The most effective interventions have worked in combination: tobacco taxes, smoke-free laws in workplaces and restaurants, state-funded cessation programs, and Medicaid coverage for quitting aids. Among these, total government spending on tobacco control programs has been the strongest predictor of whether people actually use cessation treatments like nicotine replacement therapy, quitlines, or behavioral counseling.
Price increases have been particularly powerful. A 10% increase in cigarette prices reduces overall demand by about 3 to 5% in the short term and roughly 8% over the long run. Young people are up to three times more sensitive to price than adults. A sustained 10% price hike reduces youth smoking prevalence by 5% or more, and for young adult smokers, it raises the probability of quitting by 11 to 12%. In practical terms, making cigarettes more expensive is one of the most reliable ways to prevent people from starting and to push existing smokers toward quitting.
The Decline Isn’t Equal The biggest gap in progress is socioeconomic. Lower-income adults consistently smoke at higher rates than wealthier ones, and this pattern holds across every age group, racial and ethnic group, and U.S. region, regardless of sex. While smoking has plummeted among college-educated, higher-income Americans, it remains stubbornly common among people with less education and lower incomes.
This disparity isn’t just about individual choices. Lower-income communities often have more tobacco advertising, fewer smoke-free spaces, and less access to cessation support. The same policies that have driven the overall decline, like higher prices and coverage for quitting aids, tend to have the biggest impact on these groups when they’re actually implemented and funded. But state-level investment in tobacco control varies enormously, leaving some populations behind.
Fewer Smokers, New Challenges The shift away from cigarettes hasn’t meant a shift away from nicotine. E-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, and heated tobacco products have created a more fragmented landscape. For adults trying to quit smoking, some of these products may serve as less harmful alternatives. For young people who would never have picked up a cigarette, they represent a new route into nicotine dependence.
Globally, 1.2 billion people still use tobacco. Even with steady declines, that number translates to millions of preventable deaths each year from lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, and chronic lung disease. The trajectory is encouraging, but “declining” and “solved” are very different things. Cigarette smoking is fading, particularly among younger generations in wealthier countries, but it remains one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.
I’m a way senior citizen, never smoked, but all of the adults around me in my early years smoked a lot.
But despite my abstinence, I recall with fond memories of the scent of bars in my early years.
Today’s youngsters and those after the smoking bans will never know the common, nationwide bar aroma of the combination of spilled and dried beer and tobacco.
Americana of my youth.
In Canada the sale of illegal cigarettes outpace sales of legal cigarettes by a huge margin.
Legal cigarettes sell for $20+ per package... Illegal cigarettes which are typically sold on Indian reserves, sell for less than $20 per carton. Ranging in price from $15 to $18 per carton depending on the province. I still smoke and of all the smokers I know, not one of them is still buying the legal cigarettes.
The government knows about it... But they pretend it doesn’t exist and they’ve essentially given up on trying to stop the sales from reservations. There are some provinces where law enforcement has busted reservations stores for selling cigarettes and marijuana and those same stores are open the next day and selling illegal cigarettes, marijuana, mushrooms, etc.
These arrest will eventually end up in the Supreme Court of Canada... And on most legal matters the Supreme Court in Canada typically defers to indigenous rights. Most treaties signed in the 19th and 18th centuries state that natives can freely sell any goods they produce themselves on reservations.
So the idea that there are fewer and fewer smokers every year is pure nonsense... And there are studies in Canada showing that smoking is now increasing among teens. They can’t even buy legal cigarettes... So where are they getting them??? Obviously from the reservations.
These cigarettes are professionally produced with very slick packaging and labeling... Same with the marijuana products they sell. The indigenous tribes are making tens and likely even hundreds of millions... While the government loses tens of millions in tax money every year.
If the government sold these vice products at a reasonable price, they could regain the market... But it appears to be too late for that. At government sanctioned marijuana stores they sell ounces of pot for over one hundred bucks... The reservation stores sell ounces for $25 and less.
The legalization of marijuana and exorbitant prices of government sanctioned cigarettes and marijuana created a market for the indigenous population of Canada... And they are taking full advantage of it. Cigarettes and marijuana are very cheap to produce and price gouging by overtaxing these products opens to the door to entrepreneurship from our indigenous populations... Good for them.
The idea that cigarette sales are dropping... Is pure nonsense.
The place I bought them was on the Indian reservation and was under $4/pack so it wasn't really costs why I quit, for me it was just time to.
While filming 'Peaky Blinders', the prop department went through 3,000 herbal cigarettes per season. Multiply that times 6 seasons and it's 18,000 cigarettes.
“After being a smoker for 54 years.....”
48 years for me. Quit last November.
Patches help a lot but it’s easy now, no regrets.
Congrats
I smoked for about 25 years. Chewed tobacco too when I couldn’t smoke. Any way to get nicotine. Gum. Patches.
I quit many years ago and just vape now. I’m pretty sure it’s better for my health.
For decades the left claimed Mary Jane was better than smoking. Now we have kids choosing cannibus since “cigarettes are bad”. THC is a terrible concoction for young brains still in development.
I wonder an analysis by income and/or education level would reveal.
I’m not sure, but maybe pot’s cheaper. (?)
Neat chart but I don’t think there’s a causal relation there.
I submit there’s a willpower relation, among others.
Commissary? Five bucks a carton.
Class six? Seven dollars a carton.
We paid an extra two bucks for convenience. When did they stop putting the little five-packs of smokes in our rations? Replaced them with sugar candy (Charms) and chiclets.
Early 80s when we were still eating leftover Vietnam era C-Rats. And the MRE was introduced.
I roll my own. Works out to right about $1.00 x pack.
Any old time Italian restaurant had that tangy smell of tomato sauce coupled with tobacco smoke. It wouldn’t be my first choice for a scented candle in my house, but it was not entirely unpleasant either...and tons of nostalgia in that aroma.
Not to entice anyone, but
Plain tobacco is sold in smoke shops, with tubes and rolling machines.
This tobacco has zero additives.
Pipe is less expensive, cigarette tobacco more expensive.
I believe pipe tobacco just has longer cuts.
I think.
You can buy some tobaccos that claim organic, no pesticides
There are various flavors; tubes have various filters.
Comes out to about $20 for the equivalent of a carton, more or less. I think.
How many people answer No when asked these days if you smoke, anyway?
Especially if it’s a doctor asking.
I just read the young’ins are picking up smoking again.
I don’t care who smokes.
Bring back the smoking in bars, and do away with coloring books.
“Nostalgia.”
That is the word I looked for.
How messed up can the young be if they aren’t smoking, drinking, or having sex?
That’s asking a question, not taking a side. Answers can go either way.
The #’s might be off to a certain degree. I like many Americans switched to rolling my own 100mm cigarettes with what is deemed “pipe tobacco” for tax purposes. This tobacco does not have the additives and chemical’s mandated by the federal government for pre-packaged store bought tobacco products. Regardless of how much or how many cigarettes I consume daily, my costs are affixed. I order twice a year sometimes three, 6 pounds of American club “pipe” tobacco at $12.00 a pound and 12 cartons of 100mm cigarette tube with filters and the cost (delivered to my door) is between $110-$120 dollars.Good tasting plain Tobacco for next to nothing.
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