December 25, 2010
Californians Are Smoking Less and Less
By IAN LOVETT

LOS ANGELES — Californians are smoking less than most other Americans.

According to a study released last week by the California Department of Public Health, just 13.1 percent of California residents reported smoking last year, compared with 20.6 percent nationally.

California now has the second-lowest smoking rate in the country, trailing only Utah.

The declining rate here reflects a culture that is especially conscious of health and the environment, and it was hailed by state officials as evidence of the success of a strategy to demonize smoking.

In 1988, the state increased the tax on cigarettes, using part of the proceeds to finance an antitobacco campaign, and began instituting bans on smoking in public places — first on planes and buses, then in indoor workplaces and bars.

The health department has also used media campaigns, including graphic antismoking advertisements, like a 1997 television commercial that showed a woman smoking a cigarette through the laryngectomy hole in her throat.

“In California, we are very proud of our leading role in this revolution of how people view smoking,” said Colleen Stevens, the chief of the state’s Tobacco Control Media Campaign. “People are coming to the realization that smoking is not part of a healthy lifestyle.”

Since 1988, California’s smoking rate has dropped from 22.7 percent to its current level, and the campaign has become a model for many other states.

Critics say the public smoking bans have, in effect, simply made smoking illegal; at the least, they have made life ever more difficult for smokers.

Health officials, however, argue that California’s sustained campaign has led not only to lower smoking rates, but also to public health benefits. They point out that lung cancer rates are going down more than three times as fast in California than in the rest of the country, and that the state has saved an estimated $86 billion in health care costs.

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