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Adult Smoking Rate Drops To Record Low

(AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

The national adult smoking rate has reached a historic low. But smoking cessation advocates say there is still more work to be done.

The report shows that about 35 million adult Americans were still smoking cigarettes in 2018. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey, says that translates to about 14 percent of adults.

That's down from just over 20 percent as recently as 2005.

The rate for North Carolina reached a historic low in 2017.

Dr. John Spangler is a professor of family medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Health.

He tells the Winston-Salem Journal that the latest findings are “very encouraging and should be celebrated.”

But Spangler adds that the numbers don't tell the whole story. He says that other tobacco products such as cigars and cigarillos are as unhealthy as cigarettes.

And anti-smoking advocates point out that the CDC survey does not yet examine the impact of e-cigarettes on smoking rates.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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