Once a smoker always a smoker, right? Not quite.
As the number of smokers drops, the remaining smokers actually smoke less and are more likely to quit, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Tobacco Control.
It supports the idea that smoking in the United States is heading down a "softening" curve. That means more people are trying to quit, and the number of people quitting compared to smokers is increasing as the number of total smokers declines.
Over in Europe, the researchers found, things are slightly different. The percentage of smokers who have quit remained constant even as fewer people smoked, while the number of cigarettes smoked per day dropped, as it has in U.S.
The study is based on population data collected by the Census Bureau in the U.S. over 18 years, while six years' worth of public opinion surveys conducted by the European Commission were used for EU counterpart.
[For more of this story, written by Ina Yang, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...we-need-e-cigarettes]
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