Teens smoking less in S.D.

Argus Leader, Sioux Falls: It’s encouraging news to see teen smoking rates in South Dakota drop so dramatically since the 1990s.

Whether increased prices and a higher cigarette tax have helped or societal views are helping to prevent young people from starting to smoke is unclear. What is clear is that the longer kids go without that first smoke, the more likely it is that they won’t start the cigarette habit. Almost no one starts smoking after age 25, health experts say.

Latest statistics for South Dakota show that the number of high school students who smoked at least once in the past month is less than half of what it was in the 1990s, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey by the Center for Disease Control. The daily cigarette habit has fallen by two-thirds. High school students who have smoked 20 of the past 30 days dropped from 24 percent to 9 percent, for example. The CDC will be coming out with its 2011 smoking survey results in the next two months.

While South Dakota numbers have been falling, nationwide the decline in teen smoking has stalled. Progress has been made in our state, and we’d hate to see the numbers of teen smokers increase again.

Several agencies, groups, schools, government bodies and families contribute to tobacco use education and prevention.