Cigarette sales hit historic low

WASHINGTON -- Cigarette sales are at a 55-year low, but public health advocates say more must be done to encourage the roughly 20 percent of Americans who still smoke to quit.

The National Association of Attorneys General, relying on Treasury Department data, reported that 378 billion cigarettes were sold in the United States last year. That is the lowest number sold since 1951.

Anti-smoking advocates say the decline is partly due to the $206 billion landmark agreement the states reached with cigarette makers in 1998. It imposed sweeping restrictions on tobacco advertising and marketing and led to the creation of the American Legacy Foundation, which runs hard-hitting anti-smoking ads.

Other factors credited for the decline include cigarette tax increases and a recent push for smoke-free laws.

Mark Greenwold, chief counsel for tobacco issues at the National Association of Attorneys General, said Thursday it is hard to say which measure is most responsible for the decline in sales.

"It's all these things acting together," he said. "They reinforce each other."

The number of adults who smoke has declined from about 24 percent in 1998 to about 21 percent in 2004, the last year studied by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 1998, about 35 percent of high school seniors smoked, a number that dropped to 23 percent last year, according to a survey by the University of Michigan for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

To continue the declines, or spur them further, more should be spent on tobacco cessation and prevention, said Vince Willmore, a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids.

"We know what works to reduce smoking among youths and adults, but we're not doing enough of it," he said. "Forty-five million adult Americans still smoke, and tobacco use is still the No. 1 preventable cause of death in the country."

Willmore said states are spending $551 million on smoking cessation and prevention programs in the current fiscal year, but such spending has dropped from 2002 when those efforts peaked and states spent a total of $750 million.

While it sounds like state spending remains pretty high, states receive about $21 billion annually from tobacco companies in taxes and payments associated with the legal settlement, Willmore said.

Anti-smoking advocates say one of the most difficult trends for them to counter is the effort by cigarette manufactures to market their products using in-store promotions and steep price discounts, which they say can be particularly attractive to kids.

---

On the Net:

National Association of Attorneys General: http://www.naag.org

Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids: http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/