COLUMBIA—Cigarette smoking among the state’s public high school students has declined more than 30 percent in the last six years, according to figures released today from a survey conducted by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

“We are very encouraged by the 32 percent decrease in high school smoking rates since 1999, but we must stay vigilant in supporting youth prevention efforts if we expect to maintain and even improve on these declines,” said Sharon Biggers, Director of DHEC’s Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control.

DHEC’s Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control’s Youth Tobacco Survey found the smoking rate among the state’s public high school students this year at 24.4 percent; down from 36 percent in 1999, the last year valid data was available. The DHEC survey has a 3.8 percent margin of error. The national average for smoking among high school students in 2004 was 22.3 percent with a 2.7 percent margin of error.

“While there’s not a single factor that can be pinpointed as the cause for the drop in smoking, our state’s efforts in youth smoking prevention during the two years we received tobacco settlement dollars was important,” she said.

Biggers said some of the state’s youth prevention efforts included:

¦ Rage Against the Haze, a grassroots youth movement in which teens persuade their peers not to use tobacco products by exposing how the tobacco industry targets and manipulates youth with advertising and propaganda;

¦ School programs such as Science, Tobacco & You, a fifth-grade science curriculum that encourages students to use science skills to ask and answer questions about tobacco use and prevention;

¦ Working with partners to reduce the number of young people buying cigarettes in retail stores.

Biggers said the DHEC survey yielded the first-ever data on the middle school smoking rate, which was 11.2 percent. This rate is above the national average of 8.1 percent.

“South Carolina has not allocated any funding for youth smoking prevention, tobacco settlement dollars or otherwise, for the past two years,” Biggers said. “Similar declines took place in Florida, the program on which South Carolina’s efforts were modeled. From 1998 through 2001, Florida’s youth smoking rates dramatically dropped by 30 percent among high school students and by 47 percent among middle school students. However, after severe budget cuts to the program, the early drop has slowed and progress has begun to stop and even reverse, particularly among middle schoolers.”

Biggers said Florida’s experience could be repeated in South Carolina.

“Our children could meet with the same fate because of the state’s similar cuts in funding for youth tobacco prevention programs,” Biggers said. “In fact the 2005 Youth Tobacco Survey shows that one in four students who have never smoked are at risk of starting. Among the state’s middle school students who have never smoked, 24.4 percent are susceptible to start smoking.”

The 2005 Youth Tobacco Survey was conducted in conjunction with the S.C. Department of Education’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey. A random sample of public middle and high school students throughout the state were surveyed from March through May 2005 to garner survey results. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. Parental permission was obtained. Full results from the survey will be available in January 2006.