Fast Facts

Diseases and Death

Smoking leads to disease and disability and harms nearly every organ of the body.¹

• More than 16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking.
• For every person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness.
• Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
• Smoking also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and problems of the immune system, including rheumatoid arthritis.
• Smoking is a known cause of erectile dysfunction in males.

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death.

• Worldwide, tobacco use causes nearly 6 million deaths per year, and current trends show that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually by 2030.²
• Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.¹
• On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers.³
• If smoking continues at the current rate among U.S. youth, 5.6 million of today’s Americans younger than 18 years of age are expected to die prematurely from a smoking-related illness. This represents about one in every 13 Americans aged 17 years or younger who are alive today.¹

Costs and Expenditures

The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars each year on cigarette advertising and promotions.⁴

• In 2014, more than $9 billion was spent on advertising and promotion of cigarettes—nearly $25 million every day, and about $1 million every hour.
• Price discounts account for nearly 80% of all cigarette marketing. These are discounts paid to cigarette retailers or wholesalers in order to reduce the price of cigarettes to consumers.

Smoking costs the United States billions of dollars each year.^1,5

• Total economic cost of smoking is more than $300 billion a year, including
  • Nearly $170 billion in direct medical care for adults⁵
  • More than $156 billion in lost productivity due to premature death and exposure to secondhand smoke¹

State spending on tobacco prevention and control does not meet CDC-recommended levels.^1,6,7

• States have billions of dollars from tobacco taxes and tobacco industry legal settlements to prevent and control tobacco use. However, states currently use a very small amount of these funds for tobacco control programs.^1,6,7
• In fiscal year 2017, states will collect $26.6 billion from tobacco taxes and legal settlements but will only spend $491.6 million—less than 2%—on prevention and cessation programs.⁷
• Currently, only two states (Alaska and North Dakota) fund tobacco control programs at CDC’s “recommended” level. Only one other state (Oklahoma) provides even half the recommended funding. Two states (Connecticut and New Jersey) have allocated no state funds for tobacco use prevention.⁷
• Spending less than 13% (i.e., $3.3 billion) of the $26.6 billion would fund every state tobacco control program at CDC-recommended levels.⁷

Cigarette Smoking in the US

Percentage of U.S. adults aged 18 years or older who were current cigarette smokers in 2015:⁸

• 15.1% of all adults (36.5 million people): 16.7% of males, 13.6% of females
  • Nearly 22 of every 100 non-Hispanic American Indians/Alaska Natives (21.9%)
  • About 20 of every 100 non-Hispanic multiple race individuals (20.2%)
  • Nearly 17 of every 100 non-Hispanic Blacks (16.7%)
  • Nearly 17 of every 100 non-Hispanic Whites (16.6%)
  • About 10 of every 100 Hispanics (10.1%)
  • 7 of every 100 non-Hispanic Asians (7.0%)

Note: Current cigarette smokers are defined as persons who reported smoking at least 100 cigarettes during their lifetime and who, at the time they participated in a survey about this topic, reported smoking every day or some days.

Thousands of young people start smoking cigarettes every day.¹

• Each day, more than 3,200 people younger than 18 years of age smoke their first cigarette.
• Each day, an estimated 2,100 youth and young adults who have been occasional smokers become daily cigarette smokers.

Many adult cigarette smokers want to quit smoking.

• In 2011:¹
  • Nearly 7 in 10 (68.9%) adult cigarette smokers wanted to stop smoking.
  • More than 4 in 10 (42.7%) adult cigarette smokers had made a quit attempt in the past year.
• Since 2012, the Tips From Former Smokers^TM campaign has motivated an estimated 500,000 tobacco smokers to quit for good.⁹

Note: “Made a quit attempt” refers to smokers who reported that they stopped smoking for more than 1 day in the past 12 months because they were trying to quit smoking. See CDC’s Quitting Smoking fact sheet for more information.

References

1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014 [accessed 2017 Mar 28].
2. World Health Organization. WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2011. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2011 [accessed 2017 Mar 28].
3. Jha P, Ramasundarahettige C, Landsman V, et al. 21st Century Hazards of Smoking and Benefits of Cessation in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine 2013;368:341–50 [accessed 2017 Mar 28].
4. Federal Trade Commission. Federal Trade Commission Cigarette Report for 2014[PDF–508.2 KB]. Washington: Federal Trade Commission, 2015 [accessed 2017 Mar 28].
5. Xu X, Bishop EE, Kennedy SM, Simpson SA, Pechacek TF. Annual Healthcare Spending Attributable to Cigarette Smoking: An Update American Journal of Preventive Medicine 2014;48(3):326–33 [accessed 2017 Mar 28].
6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs–2014. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014 [accessed 2017 Mar 28].
7. Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. Broken Promises to Our Children: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 17 Years Later[PDF–4.14 MB]. Washington: Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, 2016 [accessed 2017 Mar 28].
8. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Current Cigarette Smoking Among Adults—United States, 2005–2015. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2016;65(44):1205–1211 [accessed 2017 Mar 28].
9. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tips Impact and Results [last updated 2017 Mar 28; accessed 2017 Mar 28].