Teen Use of Tobacco Continues Decline, as Does Smoking by Movie Characters

By Good News Network Wednesday, September 01, 2010

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control analyzed 2000-2009 data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey on tobacco use and found a significant decline over the decade.

During 2000--2009, the prevalence of current tobacco use among middle school students declined 6.9 percent (15.1% to 8.2%), and cigarette smoking experimentation declined 14.8 percent (29.8% to 15.0%).

Similar trends were observed for high school students, with current tobacco use declining from 34.5% to 23.9% - an improvement of more than 10 percent. Experimentation with cigarettes in high school also was down nine percent over the decade, according to the school-based survey.

Middle school girls who said they smoked decreased even further during the latter period of 2006-2009, down from around 6.5% to 4.5%. And, similar trends were seen among high school girls recently, with tobacco use dropping between 2-4 percent.

There's a lot less smoking in the movies these days, too, a new report shows. In the most popular films from 1991 to 2009, tobacco use on the silver screen peaked in 2005 and has been on the decline since.

Last year more than half of the 145 top movies released didn't show any smoking at all. That's a record for the past two decades. For films aimed at children or teens, the percentage of non-smoking was even higher — 61 percent. (Read more at Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Teen smoking study in detail at the CDC)