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Health and Medicine - What Percentage Of The American Public Are Smokers?

What percentage of the American public are smokers?

Smokers constitute a minority, and a shrinking one. The percentage of adults in the United States who smoke cigarettes declined from 42.4 percent to 25.5 percent between the years 1965 and 1990. However, those percentages were virtually unchanged from 1990 to 1992. In 1993, an estimated 46 million adults (25 percent) were current smokers.

Of current smokers, an estimated 32 million people reported they wanted to quit smoking completely. Each year 34 percent of smokers attempt to quit smoking, but only 2.5 percent are successful. The success rate is so low because the tobacco used in cigarettes, cigars, and pipes contains nicotine, a highly addictive substance.

Studies have linked cigarette smoking to lung cancer and pipe and cigar smoking to oral cancers. Smoking has also been linked to respiratory diseases such as chronic (constant) bronchitis,...

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