This article discusses statistics of smokers involving education, socio-economics, geography, ethnicity/race, gender, and age. The highest smoking rates were among adults with 9-11 years of education, adults living below the poverty level, the states of Nevada, Kentucky, and Ohio, and those of the American Indian ethnicity/Alaska Natives. Smoking is also highest among women ages 18 and older and young adults or adults ages 25-44. Some of the statistics that I found most shocking were, “Each day, approximately 6,000 young persons try their first cigarette and approximately 3,000 become daily smokers” and “About half of all nicotine users start by age 13…nicotine is a pediatric disease”. This is important, especially, to include in our documentary because our inspiration for discovering this topic was the prevalence of our peers smoking outside of dorms and school buildings. Another interesting quote from the article was “Tobacco kills more than half a million women per year worldwide. This number is expected to double by 2020. Internationally, women are increasingly targeted by tobacco marketing.”
Overall, this article was a great source of information. I would like to know more specifics in some instances, for example, when they refer to “young persons” I would like to know the actual ages. This is a trusting source derived from the oral cancer foundation website, which provides various types of information regarding cigarette smoking and cancer.
http://www.oralcancerfoundation.org/tobacco/demographics_tobacco.htm