Reduced Levels Of Smoking Among Adolescents Has Stopped

Reduced Levels Of Smoking Among Adolescents Has Stopped.
The weakening in the several of US high school students who smoke has slowed significantly, following Thespian drops starting in the late 1990s, according to a new federal report. Twenty percent of consequential school students still smoke, making it impossible to reach the 2010 national goal of reducing cigarette use centre of teens to 16 percent or less, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. "The estimate of change started slowing in 2003, and in some groups of students has unqualifiedly stopped and is almost not declining at all," noted lead study author Terry F Pechacek, friend director for science at the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.

And "The only band in which we are seeing a decline is in African-American females". Part of the problem is that "we have taken our eye off the issue. Sometimes, we get complacent with our good and move on to other things".

Also, states have significantly cut their budgets for tobacco training and cessation programs. And the tobacco industry continues to aggressively target teenagers adding, "The labour has been left with the only voice out there with their $12 billion campaign".

Pechacek said there needs to be renewed stress on getting teens not to smoke. "We've got a new opportunity with the FDA legislation which gives the agency inadvertence over the tobacco industry and the ability it gives the community to do more about restricting advertising, promotion and availability of tobacco products".

That accomplishment needs to be combined with stronger anti-smoking programs, including smoke-free laws and increases in cigarette taxes. "The knack to shut off the inflow of new smokers is critical. The experience that we have had a stall has dramatic implications for the future. Millions of more youth are going to become addicted and one in three of them are accepted to die prematurely".