Facts About Teen Smoking in North Carolina
OK... so we've given you the facts about teens and smoking (that's the Facts About Teen Smoking page if you haven't already checked it out)... but now we'll do you one better! Read on to find out what's going on right here at home - facts about teens and smoking in North Carolina.
- Here's a scary fact: more of North Carolina's 12th graders smoke than adults!! 26% of adults in N.C. smoke cigarettes, while 33% of 12th graders in N.C. smoke!
- Smoking rates among adults are holding steady in North Carolina, and teen tobacco use has also peaked. From 1991 to 1997, teen tobacco use rates in N.C. increased by 41%. Since 1999, rates have begun to fall.
- A survey of North Carolina middle school students found that more than a third of them have smoked, and more than one in ten of them had smoked in the last 30 days. Over a quarter of students said they smoked their first whole cigarette before age 11!
- In 1991, kids under age 17 in North Carolina spent 6.87 million dollars buying 4.5 million packs of cigarettes (AJPH, 1994)
- 17% of North Carolina's middle school students currently use a tobacco product (like cigarettes, spit tobacco, cigars, or pipes). Once they get to high school, that number jumps to 36%!
- Tobacco use among young people increases with age - 11% of 6th graders use tobacco. By 12th grade almost half (45%) use tobacco!
- By law, you have to be 18 to buy cigarettes. But over 70% of middle school students who have tried to buy cigarettes in a store said that they weren't ask for ID the last time they tried to buy them.
- More than half of high school seniors who smoke have made one serious but failed attempt to quit. Quitting smoking is as hard for tobacco users as quitting heroin is for heroin users.