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1995 National Household Survey on
Drug Abuse,
Tobacco Related Statistics, SAMHSA,
August 1996
Highlights
- An
estimated 61 million Americans were current smokers in 1995. This represents a smoking
rate of 29 percent. Current cigarette smoking did not change between 1994 and 1995.
- Among youths age
12-17
years, rates of smoking did not change between 1994 and 1995. An
estimated 20 percent of youths age 12-17 (4.5 million adolescents) were current smokers in
1995.
- Current smokers are more likely to be heavy drinkers and illicit drug users than
nonsmokers. Among smokers in 1995, 12.6 percent were heavy drinkers and 13.6 percent were
illicit drug users. Among nonsmokers, 2.7 percent were heavy drinkers and 3.0 percent were
illicit drug users.
- In
1994, about 1.5 million Americans first became daily smokers. The estimated number of new
smokers per year has remained steady since the
1980s.
- An
estimated 61 million Americans were current smokers in 1995. This represents a smoking
rate of 29 percent for the population aged 12
years
and older. There was no change between 1994
and 1995 overall.
- Current smokers were more likely to be heavy drinkers and illicit drug users. Among
smokers, the rate of heavy alcohol use (five or more drinks on five or more days in the
past month) was 12.6 percent and the rate of current illicit drug use was 13.6 percent.
Among nonsmokers, only 2.7 percent were heavy drinkers and 3.0 percent were illicit drug
users.
- An
estimated 6.9 million Americans (3.3 percent of the population) were current users of
smokeless tobacco in 1995.
- Approximately 4.5 million youths age 12-17 were current smokers in 1995. The rate of
smoking among youths age 12-17 was 20 percent. The rate was 18.9 percent in 1994, but this
does not represent a statistically significant change.
- Youths age 12-17 who smoked were about 8 times as likely to use illicit drugs and 11 times
as likely to drink heavily as nonsmoking youths (Figure 9).
- In
1995, no significant differences in smoking rates by race/ethnicity were found. Smokeless
tobacco use was more prevalent among whites (3.9 percent) than among blacks (1.3 percent)
or Hispanics (1.2 percent).
- Among adults, men had somewhat higher rates of smoking than women, but rates of smoking
were similar for males and females aged 12-17.
- The rate of smokeless tobacco use was significantly higher for men than for women in 1995
(6.2 percent vs. 0.6 percent).
More
than
90 percent of smokeless tobacco users were men.
Figure 9. Use of Illicit Drugs
and Alcohol by 12-17 Year Old Smokers and Non-Smokers, 1995
- The rate of current cigarette use was 32 percent in the North Central region, 29 percent
in the South, 28 percent in the Northeast, and 26 percent in the West. The rate of smoking
was 27 percent in large metropolitan areas, 28 percent in small metropolitan areas, and 33
percent in nonmetropolitan areas.
- Level of educational attainment was correlated with tobacco usage. Thirty-seven percent of
adults who had not completed high school smoked cigarettes, while only 17 percent of
college graduates smoked.
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Trends in Initiation of Drug Use
- An
estimated 3 million people tried their first cigarette in 1993 (1994 estimate not
available). An estimated 1.5 million people began smoking on a daily basis in 1994. The
annual number of new daily smokers has remained stable since 1982.
It is important to focus on women of childbearing age
(age 15-44 in this report) because their substance abuse could affect the children they
care for or give birth to. Because the NHSDA includes questions about pregnancy, it is
possible to study substance use among pregnant women. To allow more detailed analyses to
be done, data from the 1994 and 1995 NHSDAs were combined, providing a sample of 761
pregnant and 14,233 nonpregnant women aged
15-44
years.
Reporting of pregnancy by NHSDA respondents appears
reasonably accurate, producing an estimate of about 2.7 million pregnant women per year.
This is close to the number of pregnant women on a given day that would be expected based
on counts of live births from the birth registration system, and estimates of induced
abortions and fetal loss rates (Ventura, Taffel, Mosher, et al 1995).
- Among women aged 15-44
years
with no children who were not pregnant, 9.3 percent were current
illicit drug users. Only 2.3 percent of pregnant women were current drug users, which
suggests that most women may reduce their drug use when they become pregnant. However,
women who recently gave birth (have a child under 2 years old, and not pregnant) have a
rate of use of 5.5 percent, suggesting that many women resume their drug use after giving
birth. Similar patterns are seen for alcohol and cigarette use (Figure 11).
Figure 11. Past Month Substance
Use Among Women Age 15-44, 1994-1995
- Among pregnant women, rates of illicit drug use and cigarette use were highest among women
in the first trimester and lowest among women in the third trimester.
- Among pregnant women, rates of substance use generally varied as they do among nonpregnant
women. Rates were higher among women 15-25 than among those 26-44, and they were higher
among unmarried women than among married women. One exception to this pattern was evident
in smoking rates by age. Nonpregnant women age 15-25 and age 26-44 had about the same
rates of smoking. However, among pregnant women, those age 26-44 had a significantly lower
past month smoking rate than those age 15-25, suggesting that older women smokers are more
likely to reduce their smoking during pregnancy than are younger women smokers.
Source: DHHS, SAMHSA, Office of Applied
Studies, National Household Survey of Drug Abuse Advance Report #18
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