WASHINGTON — There’s less lighting up in the United States as people who smoke a pack a day or more of cigarettes has declined over the past decade, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Following a seven-decade trend, the 26 percent that do still smoke a pack a day or more is considered an all-time low (30 percent smoked heavily in 2012 and that number routinely exceeded 50 percent in the 1990s).
The poll, conducted mid-July, found a continuous decline “in the percentage of heavy smokers over the years — with a particularly sharp drop since the late 1990s, when public smoking bans were implemented in many states and municipalities,” Gallup reported. Most smokers (74 percent) say they would like to give up the habit, and many of those say they have made attempts to do so. According to a poll in 2013 and the most recent poll, 6 in 10 former smokers said they were able to stop smoking in one or two attempts. (TAB)
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