Adult smoking rate rises slightly for 1st time in 15 years

[onehandle]

Source: AP

ATLANTA (AP) — Cigarette smoking rose slightly for the first time in almost 15 years, dashing health officials' hopes that the U.S. smoking rate had moved permanently below 20%.

A little under 21% of Americans were current cigarette smokers, according to a 2008 national survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's up slightly from the year before, when just 19.8% said they were smoking. It also is the first increase in adult smoking since 1994, experts noted.

The increase was so small, it could be just a blip, so health officials and experts say smoking prevalence is flat, not rising. But they are unhappy.

"Clearly, we've hit a wall in reducing adult smoking," said Vince Willmore, spokesman for the Campaign for tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington, D.C.- based research and advocacy organization.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-11-12-smoking-tobacco_N.htm

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Time to raise the tobacco taxes again.