New Yorkers drop cigarette habits in droves
New York - High taxes and heath scare tactics have driven an estimated 240,000 New Yorkers to drop smoking in the last five years, the largest drop in the United States, news reports said Friday based on research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New York City's residents who quit smoking during the period represented 19 per cent of all smokers, which the city's government put at 1,305,000 in 2002, or 21.6 per cent of the adult population. In 2006, the number of smokers dropped to 1,065,000, or 17.5 per cent.
'When we look at the US data overall, from 1965 to the present, this is faster than the US as a whole in any period,' The New York Times quoted Jennifer Ellis, the city health official who directed the study, as saying.
The study by city researchers was made from interviews with 10,000 city residents. New York City has a population of 8 million. The researchers contributed data to the CDC publication.
The city has spent 10 million dollars in television campaigns to fight smoking in the last five years after imposing higher taxes for every pack of cigarettes. A top brand pack of cigarettes now costs about 7 dollars, forcing smokers to travel outside the city to buy cigarette, driving down at the same tax collection for the city, but only slightly.
Thomas Frieden, the city's commissioner for health and mental hygiene, told The Times, 'The big picture is that if you are willing to do the right thing and take political risks as Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg did, you can get enormous health benefits.'
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