For some of the key victories and milestones in the American Lung Association's efforts to fight tobacco use, see our Tobacco Control Timeline
- CDC has definitively linked smoking to more severe illness from COVID-19.
- While overall cigarette use declined by 26% over the past decade, 91% of that decline was due to non-menthol cigarettes.
- Among current youth e-cigarette users, flavored e-cigarette use increased from 71.7% to over 82.9% among high school students and from 59.9% to 73.9% among middle school students.
- In 2020, disposable e-cigarette use skyrocketed by 1,000% among high school e-cigarette users (from 2.4% to 26.5%) and 400% among middle school e-cigarette users (from 3% to 15.2%).
- More than 23.6% of high school students in the U.S. use at least one tobacco product, including e-cigarettes, according to the 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey.
- 6.7% of middle school students use at least one tobacco product, including e-cigarettes, according to the 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey.
- From 2017 to 2020, high school e-cigarette use increased by 68% and middle school e-cigarette use increased by 42%, according to data from CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Survey.
- Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in the U.S., killing over 480,000 people per year.
- Secondhand smoke causes more than 41,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.
- 28 states and Washington D.C. have passed laws making virtually all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars smokefree.
- The District of Columbia has the highest cigarette tax in the country at $4.50 per pack.
- Missouri has the lowest cigarette tax in the country at 17 cents per pack.
- The average cigarette taxes of all states plus the District of Columbia are $1.88 per pack.
- Two states – Connecticut and Tennessee – provide no state funding at all for tobacco prevention programs.
- Three states – Alaska, Maine and Utah – are funding their tobacco control programs at or close to CDC-recommended levels (in Fiscal Year 2021).
- Colorado and Oregon were the only states to increase their cigarette taxes by significant amounts in 2020.
- No state approved a comprehensive smokefree workplace law in 2020.
- 13 states – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina – offer a comprehensive cessation benefit to tobacco users on Medicaid.
- Each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia provide tobacco quitlines, a phone number for quit smoking phone counseling. The median amount states invest in quitlines is $2.28 per smoker in each state.
- Nineteen states and the District of Columbia approved Tobacco 21 laws prior to the federal Tobacco 21 law passing.
- Nationwide, the Medicaid program spends more than $39.6 billion in healthcare costs for smoking-related diseases each year – more than 15.2% of total Medicaid spending.
- In 2009, the American Lung Association played a key role in the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority over tobacco products.
- The American Lung Association played a key role in airplanes becoming smokefree in the 1990s.
- 42 states and the District of Columbia spend less than half of what the CDC recommends on their state tobacco prevention programs.
- States spend less than three cents of every dollar of the $26.9 billion they get from tobacco settlement payments and tobacco taxes to fight tobacco use in fiscal year 2021.
- Each day, close to 1,500 kids under 18 try their first cigarette and more than 200 kids become new, regular smokers.
- Each day, more than 1,200 kids try their first cigar. On average, more than 50 kids try their first cigar every hour in the United States – equaling about 442,000 every year.
- Smoking costs the U.S. economy over $332 billion in direct health care costs and lost productivity every year.
- The five largest cigarette companies spent over $23 million dollars per day marketing their products in 2018.
- Secondhand smoke costs the U.S. economy $5.6 billion per year due to lost productivity.
- Smoking rates are over twice as high for Medicaid recipients (24.9%) compared to those with private insurance (10.7%).
- A 2013 study of California's tobacco prevention program shows that the state saved $55 in healthcare costs for every $1 invested from 1989 to 2008.
- A 2017 study found that states which expanded Medicaid had a 36% increase in the number of tobacco cessation medication prescriptions relative to the states that did not expand Medicaid. This means more quit attempts with proven cessation treatments are being made.
- A 2019 study found patients in Medicaid expansion states who ordered a cessation medication had a 65% higher chance of quitting than those in non-expansion states.
- In 2020, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma implemented Medicaid expansion, providing more smokers with access to tobacco cessation treatments.
- Uninsured Americans smoke at a rate more than two times higher (22.5%) than people with private insurance (10.7%).
- An estimated one-third of Americans living in public housing smoke.
- The smoking rate among adults with moderate to severe psychological distress is 79% higher than among those with none to mild.
- Indigenous Peoples (American Indians/Alaska Natives) have the highest commercial tobacco smoking rates among any racial/ethnic group.
- California became the second state to prohibit the sale of most flavored tobacco products in 2020 joining Massachusetts.
Page last updated: January 27, 2021