Smoking Rates: Pack-A-Day Smoking Is Down Dramatically

Over the last 40 years, the number of people who smoke a pack a day has dropped significantly, a new study finds. And California -- with its comprehensive anti-smoking efforts -- has led the charge.

The report, published yesterday in JAMA, tracked the prevalence of heavy smokers (defined as people who smoke 20 cigarettes or more, per day) among more than a million-and-a-half respondents between 1965 and 2007.

Researchers from the University of California San Diego found that in 1965 -- the year after the first-ever surgeon general's report on smoking and health -- 56 percent of people who identified as smokers were heavy, or pack-a-day, smokers. By 2007, that percentage dropped dramatically, to only 40 percent.

Tobacco tax hike talk stubbed out

HEALTH Minister Nicola Roxon has moved to extinguish any suggestion Labor could increase the tobacco excise in the May budget.

Ms Roxon was forced to stub out the speculation after the government's indigenous smoking coordinator, Tom Calma, said another tax hike had been "mooted".

Labor increased the excise by 25 per cent in April 2010, adding $2.16 to the price of a pack of 30 smokes.

The government's preventative health taskforce had recommended a 68 per cent increase in the excise.

But in responding to the taskforce's findings in May the government argued that while hiking prices could cause some smokers to quit "it can also induce financial stress among people who continue to smoke".