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.
Understand the amounts I paid are what 12 packs of Camel non filters cost.
Everyone I know who smoked said it killed their cravings for snacking.
More broadly, you can draw a very bright line from the successful weaponization of anti-tobacco sentiment, and the destruction of rights, specifically those of commercial property owners such as the owners of cafes, restaurants, bars, stores, environmentalism, and the knock-on effects on civil liberties during COVID-1984.
In 1995, California was the first state to enact a statewide smoking ban for restaurants. I worked in NYC when the idea to ban smoking in bars and clubs gained steam, and ultimately passed in 2002. It sparked a citywide debate, with the pro-ban people gaining the upper hand. I mean, how can you defeat leftist-based emotional argument of "I won't die of secondhand smoke and my clothes won't smell"?
And there was much rejoicing. Except...what really happened was a sort-of violation of the Takings clause. What all the anti-smokers et al achieved was the sanctioning of the state to tell commercial property owners what can and can't happen on their property, without compensation.
NY has moved beyond bars, clubs, offices, and public places to outdoors. Other municipalities have enacted similar takings, erm, bans. Nobody fights for commercial property rights anymore. Marx and Engels are laughing in hell.
Second-hand smoke is what economists call an externality - an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity. Guess what else is an externality? Air pollution, specifically exhaust from motor vehicles. The same folks who complain about the smell of smoke are likely driving cars with an internal combustion engine. This may be only one example of an externality, but the whole environmental movement rests on "the need for government to regulate industry to make the air clean." You can draw a straight line from the “ban smoking indoors” movement to Greta Thunberg.
The whole concept of negative externalities, which worked so swimmingly in the anti-smoking crusade, got weaponized in Covid. When the shots that were granted EUAs rolled out, many people refused to take them. We then saw the pro-shot talking heads brandish anti-smoking arguments - remember "The bottom line: We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers." Regarding masks, we got Mandatory masking? What smoking bans can teach us
Despite well-documented health consequences of indoor smoking, efforts to ban the behavior were met with intense political resistance and an all-too-familiar civil liberties debate, just as we see today. But science, combined with social and political initiatives that were responsive to public concerns, eventually spurred a large-scale shift in public opinion around smoking bans. From this experience, three lessons can inform how to improve adherence to universal masking -- a life-saving public health measure: 1. Frame masking as a workers' rights issue, 2. Mandates are necessary because they work, and 3. Don't lose sight of the last mile.
Again, I don’t smoke, and I also don’t like smelling like a chimney (or nowadays, like a pot dispensary) after a night at a club or restaurant. But liberty isn’t always clean and antiseptic; second-hand smoke is a cost of freedom.
The anti-smoking campaign that gave the government an inroad into whittling away rights under the guise of public health has continue unabated.
….and now we’re fat to boot.
Habitual daily smoking is dumb. A cigarette once in a while like once a year is nice
“I don’t care if mud people smoke or not.”
Nor do I.
What’s the deal with the anti tobacco push while you can inhale pot all over NYC and LA. I find that super offensive, forcing others to take in toxicity, nasty and really dumb
Well said.
Interesting idea.
HaHa
But not at my dr’s office where healthy living pays off.
I’ll be 90 in June. weigh 112, perfect posture, walk up and down 14 steps several times a day, sometimes carrying packages. Walk to a store or two, carry groceries, often including gallon jugs of water.
.
Off to the store now.
If I never post here again, you can worry. Or mourn.
A friend of mine about 5 years ago got either a one- or two-injection treatment of something called Wel-plex that completely erased her desire to smoke.
Question to ChatGPT:
Does smoking cigarettes lower a person’s appetite enough to cause them to lose weight?
Short answer: Yes, nicotine in cigarettes can reduce appetite and slightly increase metabolism, but only enough to cause modest weight differences
**
I left out the rest where it got preachy. Everybody knows it’s not good for you.
Remember the TV series “Mad Men?” That was a clinic on how to contract small-cell carcinoma of the lungs. And it wasn’t/isn’t alone.
“It’s Toasted!”
Awesome, I’m about to turn 77 and hoping to stay active for some more good years. You are one of my heroes now!
In central PA I’d say it can’t be less than 30% who smoke cigarettes. And with folks in lower income range, it’s probably 50%.
I often see people outside stores and workplaces taking desperate final drags before entering public spaces, but when the proprietor owns the building, there’s always ashtrays and chairs.
This is black lung territory, their ancestors worked in coal mines, so maybe they don’t see a problem.
I hate the taste of cigarettes…but for some reason when I drink, I HAVE to have a cigarette. I usually have a drink or two 4-6 times a month, mainly socially, so I doubt the damage is too bad. Of course, when I go to the casino I can smoke half a pack in 2 hours.
Oh, I’m not suggesting that smoking is a great idea.
What I AM saying is that smoking and overeating MAY be two sides of the same coin. There are societal costs to both. Yet, tobacco gets demonized and taxed but while Oreos are advertised on TV and relatively untaxed.
There are all kinds of Bad Things that happen when consumables are not taken in moderation. Anti-smoking govt efforts are a great example of the govt spawning problems Over There while “solving” a problem Over Here.
Both are toxic to one’s health.
I’ve heard others say exactly what you wrote. They quit, but still smoke when at certain times, drinking being the most common. With one guy it was golf.
Used to score smokes for 45 cents a pack from the unattended cigarette machine at the bowling alley in the 70s when I was in high school.
They were three bucks a carton at the supermarket.
Would liike to see Total Nicotine Use trend -cigs plus vapes.
Cool, and I got what you pointing at. Thanks for the expansion of your words though, I agree with that addition too.
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