Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:
As the percentage of U.S. adults who smoke cigarettes has reached a new low of 11% this year, much of the decline is tied to sharply lower smoking rates among young adults. From 2001 to 2003, an average of 35% of U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 29 said they smoked cigarettes, compared with 12% in the latest estimate.
This 23-percentage-point decline among young adults is more than double that of any other age group over that time. As a result of these changes, young adults have moved from the group most likely to smoke cigarettes to the second-least likely, with a rate higher than only the oldest Americans.
