States' Anti-Smoking Campaigns Paying Off

By Adrienne D. Coles

While a recent national survey found that more than one-third of high school students and almost 13 percent of middle school students reported having recently smoked or chewed some form of tobacco, a handful of states have created programs that are helping them to buck the national trend.

The American Legacy Foundation, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control Foundation, conducted the 1999 National Youth Tobacco Survey, the first to look at children ages 11 to 13. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided the nonprofit foundations with scientific and technical assistance.

The study estimates that one in eight, or 12.8 percent, of middle school students in grades 6-8 had used tobacco—cigarettes, smokeless products, cigars, pipes, bidis, or kreteks—in the past month. Among high school students, the overall prevalence of tobacco use was 34.8 percent.