While Smoking Rates Fall, Smokeless Tobacco Use Rates Rise

A federal government report on tobacco use prevalance states that smokeless tobacco use is on the rise for adolescent boys. Data indicates that from 2002 to 2007, rates rose from 3.4% to 4.4% nationally. The report, Smokeless Tobacco Use, Initiation and Relationship to Cigarette Smoking: 2002 to 2007, found that 7.8 million Americans 12 and over used smokeless tobacco products in 2007. Smokeless tobacco methods include snus, chewing tobacco, and nicotine inhalers. The report also lists a number of other findings which include the following: 85.8% of smokeless tobacco users used cigarettes at some point in their life times, with 38.8% using cigarettes in the past month; males were more likely than females to use smokeless tobacco; while many began using smokeless tobacco to quit smoking, 88.1% of users were found to still be using tobacco 6 months later