Risky Behavior - Smoking Trends: Teens

This chart shows smoking trends among high school seniors between 1977 and 1998. The data come from Monitoring the Future Project, which first began collecting data in high schools in 1975. Youth is a time for experimenting. This was true for smoking, especially for girls. The graphic shows that in 1977, 37.1% of girls had smoked in the last 30 days, compared to 31.2% of boys. Overall prevalence declined among both boys and girls until the early 1990s, but girls continued smoking at higher rates than boys until 1990.

Smoking prevalence has been consistently lower among blacks and Hispanics. Smoking by blacks declined precipitously from 37% to 9% between 1977-1993 before it began to rise again, reaching 15% in 1998. Hispanic rates fell from 36% in 1977 to a low of 21% in 1988 before starting a rise to 27% in 1998. Smoking among white teens also rose in the 1990s. A booming economy may account for this.

The table on the next page compares smoking prevalence among students and adults. The data are not precisely comparable because high school students reported smoking in the last 30 days; adults reported being current smokers. From 1979-1988, a smaller percentage of boys than men smoked and a higher percentage of girls than boys smoked. From 1979-1998, more girls than women smoked.

Are Joe Camel and his ilk responsible for hooking the young? Multinational Monitor tells us: "R.J. Reynolds' enormously successful Camel cartoon advertising campaign [is] one of the most blatant efforts by tobacco companies to market cigarettes to teens and children. Launched … in 1988, the Camel ads feature a cartoon camel character called Joe Camel, who appears in hot tub and as a player in a band, often with women nearby. Many of the ads feature the Hard Pack, a blues band consisting of Joe and four other cartoon characters. The Joe Camel character is based on a Camel cartoon used in France in the early 1970s to circumvent a prohibition on the use of human models in tobacco advertising."^{35 36}

High School Seniors and Adults Who Smoked (%)

	Students		Adults
Year	Boys	Girls	Men	Women
1979	31.2	37.1	37.5	29.9
1980	26.8	33.4	37.6	29.3
1983	28.0	31.6	35.1	29.5
1985	28.2	31.4	32.6	27.9
1987	27.0	31.4	31.2	26.5
1988	28.0	28.9	30.8	25.7
1990	29.1	29.2	28.4	22.8
1991	29.0	27.5	28.1	23.5
1992	29.2	26.1	28.6	24.6
1993	30.7	28.7	27.7	22.5
1994	32.9	29.2	28.2	23.1
1995	34.5	32.0	27.0	22.6
1997	37.3	35.2	27.6	22.1
1998	36.3	33.3	26.4	22.0

Centers for Disease Control recently reported that the number of high school students who said they smoked fell more than 20% between 1997-2001, from about 36% of all students to 28%. The decline is attributed to higher cigarette taxes, anti-smoking campaigns aimed at teens, and state efforts to reduce rates of tobacco use. The government hopes to see high school smoking prevalence fall to 16% or lower by 2010 and believes a $2-a-pack excise tax on cigarettes by that year will help in the achievement of that goal.

Pierce and Gilpin studied national survey data to determine how long adolescent smokers can expect their addiction to last. They concluded that adolescents "may not fully understand that quitting this addiction is very difficult…. smoking will be a long-term addiction for many adolescents who start now."

Sources: Chart: "Smoking status of high school seniors — United States, Monitoring the Future Projects, 1976-1998," retrieved August 6, 2002, from http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/research_data/youth/. Adam Marcus, "Teen Smoking Rates Drop Sharply: Higher cigarette taxes a big contributor to the trend," HealthScoutNews, May 16, 2002, retrieved August 6, 2002, from http://www.drkoop.com/. John P. Pierce and Elizabeth Gilpin, "How Long Will Today's New Adolescent Smoker Be Addicted to Cigarettes," American Journal of Public Health, Feb. 1996, p. 253-256. Karen Lewis, "Addicting the Young: Tobacco Pushers and Kids, Multinational Monitor, Jan./Feb. 1992, p. 13-17.