Health News
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- Teen Smoking In Kentucky Declined More Than It Did In Nation From 2002 To 2010, But State Remained In Top 10
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- Kentucky's Adult Smoking Rate Falls Below 25% For The First Time
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- Parents Should Talk To Children About Drugs And Alcohol Often, And Firmly, But Spend More Time Listening
Talking about drugs and alcohol often, and when children are at a young age, are two of the best things parents can do to prevent substance abuse by teenagers. "As much as parents want to be the 'anti-drug,' as media campaigns encourage, the...
- New Study Shows Higher Tobacco Taxes Greatly Reduce Youth Smoking
Health advocates today urged Illinois leaders to increase the cigarette tax by $1/pack following a new national study that confirms higher tobacco taxes are very effective at reducing smoking and other tobacco use, especially among kids. The new study,...
Health News
U.S. teens' cigarette use drops to a new low, but use of alcohol goes up a bit and more 12th graders are smoking marijuana
Teenagers' cigarette smoking dropped to a record low this year but alcohol use rose slightly after seven years of decline, according to a survey of 45,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th- graders for the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
The survey also found that the use of illicit drugs dropped slightly among eighth-graders but rose slightly among 12th-graders. Among them, 36.4 percent reported using marijuana in the past year, up from 34.8 percent in 2010, and the share who saw great risk in smoking marijuana occasionally dropped significantly, to 20.6 percent, from 24.5 percent in 2010.
Among all three age groups, only 10.6 percent said they had smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days, down from 11.7 percent in 2010. The University of Michigan researchers who did the survey said the decline was significant, and may have been driven by a big increase in the federal tobacco tax in 2009.
"A 1-percentage-point decline may not sound like a lot, but it represents about a 9 percent reduction in a single year in the number of teens currently smoking," principal researcher Lloyd Johnston said in a news release. Among eighth-graders, the decline was about 20 percent. For other results of the survey, click here; for a PDF version, here. For the full survey report, go here.
"Teen attitudes toward smoking also continued to become more negative. For example, 80 percent of teens said they preferred to date nonsmokers in 2012," Steve Gorman reports for Reuters. "But anti-tobacco advocates said their battle to stamp out teen smoking was far from over, noting that 17 percent of high school seniors still graduate as smokers." And the figure is higher in many rural areas.
Kentucky ranks at or near the top in youth smoking. In 2010, the last year for which state figures are available, 16 percent of Kentucky children aged 12 to 17 (a slightly younger group than the one above) reported smoking a cigarette in the past month. The national rate for that age group was 10 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The survey also found that the use of illicit drugs dropped slightly among eighth-graders but rose slightly among 12th-graders. Among them, 36.4 percent reported using marijuana in the past year, up from 34.8 percent in 2010, and the share who saw great risk in smoking marijuana occasionally dropped significantly, to 20.6 percent, from 24.5 percent in 2010.
Among all three age groups, only 10.6 percent said they had smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days, down from 11.7 percent in 2010. The University of Michigan researchers who did the survey said the decline was significant, and may have been driven by a big increase in the federal tobacco tax in 2009.
"A 1-percentage-point decline may not sound like a lot, but it represents about a 9 percent reduction in a single year in the number of teens currently smoking," principal researcher Lloyd Johnston said in a news release. Among eighth-graders, the decline was about 20 percent. For other results of the survey, click here; for a PDF version, here. For the full survey report, go here.
"Teen attitudes toward smoking also continued to become more negative. For example, 80 percent of teens said they preferred to date nonsmokers in 2012," Steve Gorman reports for Reuters. "But anti-tobacco advocates said their battle to stamp out teen smoking was far from over, noting that 17 percent of high school seniors still graduate as smokers." And the figure is higher in many rural areas.
Kentucky ranks at or near the top in youth smoking. In 2010, the last year for which state figures are available, 16 percent of Kentucky children aged 12 to 17 (a slightly younger group than the one above) reported smoking a cigarette in the past month. The national rate for that age group was 10 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Study Finds That Teens Who Use E-cigarettes Are More Than Twice As Likely As Non-using Teens To Start Smoking Tobacco Products
image: usnews.comTeens who use electronic cigarettes may be more than twice as likely to start smoking tobacco than those who have never used the devices, according to a study at the University of Southern California. ?Recreational e-cigarette use is...
- Teen Smoking In Kentucky Declined More Than It Did In Nation From 2002 To 2010, But State Remained In Top 10
Like most states, Kentucky showed a drop in reported cigarette smoking among 12- to 17-year-olds from 2002 to 2010, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Nationwide, teenagers' reported "current use"...
- Kentucky's Adult Smoking Rate Falls Below 25% For The First Time
For the first time since state smoking rates were measured, fewer than one in four Kentucky adults are smokers, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate in 2010 was 24.8 percent, down from 28.7 percent...
- Parents Should Talk To Children About Drugs And Alcohol Often, And Firmly, But Spend More Time Listening
Talking about drugs and alcohol often, and when children are at a young age, are two of the best things parents can do to prevent substance abuse by teenagers. "As much as parents want to be the 'anti-drug,' as media campaigns encourage, the...
- New Study Shows Higher Tobacco Taxes Greatly Reduce Youth Smoking
Health advocates today urged Illinois leaders to increase the cigarette tax by $1/pack following a new national study that confirms higher tobacco taxes are very effective at reducing smoking and other tobacco use, especially among kids. The new study,...