By Mike Esterl, Karishma Mehrotra and Valerie Bauerlein
The U.S. adult smoking rate has plunged to below 20% from more
than 40% half a century ago. Increasingly, smokers are poorer and
less educated. And many smokers call themselves "occasional" or
social smokers, consciously reining themselves in to try to avoid
getting hooked.
Still, there are more than 40 million smokers in the U.S. today.
And beneath the broad trends are pockets of growth and opportunity
that are generating great interest in the tobacco industry.
Smoking rates are higher in gay, lesbian and bisexual groups,
which are being targeted by the industry. More Americans are
switching to menthol cigarettes like Newport, Lorillard Inc.'s
biggest brand. Indeed, Newport is the hot brand that Reynolds
American Inc. expects to add to its portfolio with its planned $25
billion acquisition of Lorillard, announced Tuesday.
At a time when Americans crave extreme taste in products that
range from candy to beer, it isn't surprising that the only
flavored cigarette the FDA allows--menthol--is also the one that is
growing fastest. Menthol cigarettes have grown to 31.4% of the
cigarette mix, up from 28.7% in 2008, according to Citi Research.
The Food and Drug Administration is weighing restrictions on
menthol, amid studies suggesting it cools the mouth and throat,
making it easier to start smoking and harder to quit.
"It just tastes good," said Jay Oh, a 29-year-old waitress in
Kotzebue, Alaska, who smokes Kool menthols and lives in the county
where U.S. smoking rates are the highest: 41.5% for men and 40.8%
for women, according to a recent study by the Institute for Health
Metrics and Evaluation.
Menthol cigarettes are particularly popular with
African-Americans, who smoke them 80% of the time. Small-business
consultant Bo M. Marshall, 40, bought a pack of Camel Crush Menthol
cigarettes at Tobacco & Gifts in Raleigh, N.C., on Tuesday
morning. The Crush cigarette, made by Reynolds, tastes like a
regular Camel until you crush the logo on the filter, releasing a
menthol burst of flavor.
Reynolds also has been cultivating its niche Natural American
Spirit brand by pitching it as "organic."
Russell Mick, a 27-year-old environmental sciences major at the
University of Arkansas, rolls his own cigarettes with organic
Natural American Spirit tobacco. "It's 'healthy,' " said Mr. Mick,
making air quotes with his fingers.
Cigarette companies have already stepped up their marketing in
the LGBT community. A government survey published last month
estimated the smoking rate among lesbian, gay and bisexuals to be
27.7%, compared with 17.3% among heterosexuals. The higher smoking
rates could be tied to greater social stress, more frequent visits
to bars and higher rates of alcohol use, according to Legacy, an
antismoking group.
Smoking rates also vary regionally. Kentucky, a major tobacco
producer, had the highest smoking rate in the country last year at
30.2%, followed by West Virginia and Mississippi, according to a
Gallup poll. Utah had the lowest rate, at 12.2%, followed by
California and Minnesota.
In Vicksburg, Miss., 34-year-old restaurant worker Felicia James
says she has been smoking for 20 years and doesn't feel out of
place. Her city is near Issaquena County, where the male smoking
rate rose 1.1% in annualized terms between 1996 and 2012, the
biggest increase in any U.S. county, according to a recent
study.
"It's like everybody smokes," said Ms. James, who smokes Newport
menthols.
Something else that hasn't changed despite years of state and
federal excise tax increases: the lower the income, the higher the
smoking rate.
The adult smoking rate among Americans below the poverty line
was 27.9% in 2012, compared with 17% for those above the poverty
line, according to a government survey.
The smoking rate in households with annual incomes that top
$100,000 is 9.3%, according to another recent government
survey.
But cigarettes also cost less in smoker-heavy states. The 10
states with the highest smoking rates had an average cigarette tax
of 82 cents a pack in 2012, compared with $2.42 in the 10 states
with the lowest smoking rates, according to Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Kids.
About 70% of American smokers say they want to quit, and about
50% try to quit every year.
"I need to quit," says Mr. Marshall, the North Carolina
small-business consultant. "I have quit a number of times."
Many say they are ashamed of the habit. Donna "D" Sharp, who
works at a law firm in Atlanta, has been smoking a half a pack of
Newports a day for 30 years. "We're definitely pariahs of society
at this point," Ms. Sharp, 59, said. She isolates herself at dinner
parties and goes outside her office building during the day to
smoke. "It's a horrible, ugly habit," she said.
But kicking the habit remains tough. Only about 1 in 20 who try
to quit in any given year actually succeed, according to various
surveys.
Vivek Dutta, a 65-year-old engineering consultant in Cupertino,
Calif., says he began smoking when he was 24 and smokes a pack a of
Marlboro Golds each day. But he only the first half of each
cigarette, hoping less tar will enter his lungs that way.
When Chuck Rushton started smoking as a teenager, cigarettes
were 35 cents a pack.
Now he's spending about $48 a week for a carton of Doral Gold
cigarettes at N.C. Tobacco, the strip-mall shop in southwest
Raleigh where he is a regular. Mr. Rushton, 63, said he would like
to quit but hasn't been able to. "I've tried gum, patches,
hypnosis, and cold turkey," he said. "The longest I lasted was four
days."
His doctor suggested he switch to electronic cigarettes, but it
turns out that for him--and a lot of others--e-cigarettes just
aren't the same as smoking.
He thinks an e-cig "looks like a portable hookah," he said. Mr.
Marshall, the Camel Crush smoker, doesn't trust them. "You don't
know what's in that stuff," he said. "I can't see inhaling a vapor
that's not necessarily FDA approved."
Mr. Mick, the college student, says most of his smoker friends
switched to e-cigs because they are more convenient. He tried, but
"it doesn't appeal to me," said Mr. Mick. "An e-cig is not a
cigarette. The tactile experience, the disgusting sensation of
smoke entering my lungs. It's not the same."
Peter Evans and Betsy McKay contributed to this article.
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