Smoking on the rise

After decades of government-issued health warnings on the dangers of smoking, the message still isn't strong enough to get College of Charleston student Brittany Connor to stub out her cigarette.

"It's a stress thing," said the 19-year-old from Greenville, who started smoking in high school when she was 16. "It's a habit."

It's also a habit that isn't going away in South Carolina or nationally.

The frequency of U.S. cigarette-smoking inched slightly higher last year -- the first upward movement among the American public in almost 15 years. Just under 21 percent of the population said they smoked in 2008, a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found. It means that better than one in five men and women in the country are choosing to light up.

The jump -- though statistically a blip increase from the 19.8 percent level in the previous year -- is considered significant given that anti-smoking advocates have pushed to keep the national figure below the 20 percent threshold.

What caused the jump now is unclear. It could be tied to the sour economy, since so-called "vice" spending is known to increase during tough times.

But in tobacco-friendly states like South Carolina, anti-smoking advocates say the increase is proof the state is not taking enough serious steps to discourage cigarette use.

Southern states "have failed to enact polices that we know will cut the rate of smoking, particularly among youth," said Amy Barkley, who monitors the Mid-Atlantic region for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an anti-smoking lobby in Washington, D.C.

South Carolina particularly has stumbled, Barkley said, given that its 7-cent per pack sales tax is the lowest in the country, far below the national average of $1.34 a pack, and generating only about $2 million a year in state taxes. She called the level "ridiculously low" since pricing at the high end is the most proven method of discouraging people from starting to smoke. More than 5,500 teenagers under age 18 pick up the habit in South Carolina every year.

Another shortcoming, she said, is the small commitment by the S.C. Legislature toward funding cessation and prevention efforts. Next year the state's package will run only about $2 million -- far short of the $62 million the CDC says is needed to be effective.

South Carolina appears to be doing well with local municipal efforts to curb smoking in public places indoors like the workplace, and bars and restaurants, she said. About 30 cities and towns in the state have passed preventive ordinances.

Anecdotally, several Charleston-area smokers say they picked up the habit in their midteens while in high school.

"I don't know, I just picked it up. I was stressed out," said College of Charleston sophomore Edith Samson, 20, who's been smoking for two years.

College senior Miles Drew, 21, of Atlanta rolls his own cigarettes and said smoking is just a common habit. "It's still advertised everywhere," he said. "If anything, you see 1,000 cigarette butts on the ground just walking around."

The report on the smoking increase, published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, is based on nationwide interviews with nearly 22,000 U.S. adults. It also comes as federal officials have said their ultimate goal is to reduce America's smoking rate to about one out of every 10 people.