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Smoking rate among teenagers had continued to decrease

Published on July 10, 2008 10:16 AM

A Health official related that smoking among New York City’s teenagers had continued to decrease in 2007 faster than among adults in the city. They said that the cause of drop was the high cigarette taxes and restrictions on public smoking.

In city public high schools students were inspected by Health Officials. They observed that the smoking rate among students in the ninth to twelfth grades dropped to 8.5 percent in 2007 from 17.6 percent in 2001.

Officials said that adult smoking in the city has dropped only 20 percent, but teenager smoking has dropped 52 percent.

Smoking rate among teenagers dropped not only in New York City but also in Staten Island (14.7 percent, down from 22.8 percent in 2005), in Bronx (6.2 percent, down from 9.9 percent in 2005) and in Manhattan (6.9 percent, down from 10.6 percent).

But very amazing is that the smoking rate for teenager girls dropped to 8.6 percent from 12 percent in 2005, while among boys it fell to 8.3 percent from 10.5 percent.

Dr. Frieden has assessed 20,000 teenager smokers out of 250,000 in the city’s public high schools. He observed that smoking rate among student dropped indeed.

Dr. Frieden said that the main reason for the drop is the state tobacco taxes, which have been rising in recent years. “Kids are most susceptible to price because they don’t have a whole lot of disposable income,” Dr. Frieden said. “So when you increase the price of cigarettes, you drive smoking down generally among adults but especially for teens.”

The city’s Department of Consumer Affairs reported that even teenagers who want to buy cigarettes are finding fewer places to do so.