Cigarets, as Americans used to call them, have presumably been the most controversial consumer product in human history. 60 years ago, in 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General made a bold announcement: cigaret smoking causes lung cancer and probably heart disease, and the government should do something about it. The Surgeon General, who was a longtime smoker himself, spoke at a press conference unveiling the famous 1964 Report on Smoking and Health. The press conference was held on a Saturday to minimize the report’s effect on the stock market. In 1964, smoking was common, fashionable, and done everywhere in the U.S. and tobacco was an even more impactful industry in the overall U.S. economy. The verdict on cigarets were covered by the Evening News on every major network.
Many Americans had hoped the verdict would be different: tobacco people, farmers, politicians,
suppliers, salesmen, advertising men-and , not least of all, the American smoker, who has mightily
resisted the idea that his old and comforting friend, the cigaret, had all along been a villain. The whole controversy about smoking and health that led to the appointment of the Surgeon General’s committee started in the late 1940s. Medical statisticians began to notice the two spectacular increases: rate of lung cancer deaths since 1930 (far beyond that of any other type of cancer) and rise in the consumption of cigarets during the same period.
This striking parallel became meaningful when it turned out that most lung cancer victims actually were heavy cigaret smokers. Lung cancer had suddenly become the most prevalent type of cancer among the American men. But, not among American women – as they started to smoke heavily and in great numbers only recently at that time.
America’s fight with smoking continues since then. The smoking rate among U.S. adults is down from 45% in 1954 (record high) to 11% in 2024 (record low). Although the smoking rate in the U.S. peaked in 1954, cigaret consumption per capita peaked in 1963 (the year before the U.S. Surgeon General warning) and cigaret sales peaked only in 1981. Between 1954 and 1981 (35% smoking rate), the decline in the smoking rate was compensated by population growth (+45%) and the cigaret market continued to grow.
32 billion packs of cigarets were sold in 1981 (record high). In 2024, the number of cigarets sold in the U.S. is down to 7.5 billion packs in 2024 – less than a quarter of the amount sold at its peak altough the U.S. population increased by almost 50% since then. However, in terms of value, the U.S. cigaret market is bigger today than at its 1981 volume peak. At an average price of $8 per pack, U.S. smokers spent $60 billion on cigarets in 2024. At an average price of $0.625 per pack, U.S. smokers spent only $20 billion on cigarets in 1981 (- yet, that is equivalent to $70 billion on an inflation-adjusted basis).
Will cigarets be extinct? Sure. It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when. According to the 2024 Annual National Youth Tobacco Survey, only 1.4% of middle & high school students are smoking cigarets in the U.S. This figure was around 20% in 2000s and 10% in 2010s. The smoking rate among middle & high school students is likely to be “virtually zero” by the end of this decade. Considering that smoking is a habit picked up early in life (90% of the time before 18) and some smokers quit or switch to alternative products over time, the smoking rate in the US is set to dip from its current level of 11% towards zero once the last smoking generation, Generation X (born 1965-1979) Generation Y (born 1980-1994), are off the habit or the world itself. Probably, cigarets will be extinct in the U.S. in 2050 – or, a product used only by a few remaining fanatics. Like typewriters.
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