NCPA - Daily Policy Digest - Teenage Smoking Surged in the '90s

Policy Issues

NCPA Publications

Both Sides

Editorial Opinions

Audio/Visual

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
/ / / /

Teenage Smoking Surged in the '90s

Daily Policy Digest

Social Issues

Monday, September 17, 2001

After a steady 15-year decline, the smoking rate among U.S. teens rose by one-third from 1991 to 1997 -- hitting 35 percent.

Smoking increased more among whites than blacks, more in the suburbs than the cities, and more among teens with high grades and college-educated mothers.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers Jonathan Gruber and Jonathan Zinman attempted to identify the causes.

A sharp drop in cigarette prices in the early 1990s explains about 25 percent of the increase in smoking among high school seniors, the researchers report.

But that does not seem to explain the jump in smoking rates among younger teens -- who are less price-sensitive.

The dramatic rise in cigarette prices in recent years, however, has once again had the effect of discouraging teen smoking.

Teen smoking is highly correlated with later adult smoking.

Thus, they estimate that as much as half the rise in youth smoking in the '90s may persist into adulthood -- shortening the lives of more than half a million people.

Source: Gene Koretz, "Economic Trends: A Teenage Smoking Puzzle," Business Week, September 24, 2001; based on Jonathan Gruber and Jonathan Zinman, "Youth Smoking in the U.S.: Evidence and Implications," NBER Working Paper No. W7780, July 2000, National Bureau of Economic Research.

For NBER text
http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7780

For more on Drug Use and Control
http://www.ncpa.org/pd/social/social4.html

12770 Coit Rd., Suite 800 - Dallas, TX 75251-1339 - 972/386-6272 - Fax 972/386-0924
601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 900 South Building - Washington, DC 20004 - 202/220-3082 - Fax 202/220-3096
Copyright © 2001 National Center for Policy Analysis - All rights reserved.