Record Number of Americans Stop Smoking : Health: CDC reports a dramatic decline since ‘87, with 49% of adults having quit. Decreasing social acceptability, awareness of risks are cited.

Smoking in this country has undergone a dramatic decline since 1987 as record numbers of Americans have rejected the habit, federal health officials announced Thursday.

Between 1987 and 1990, smoking rates among adults decreased more than twice as fast as they did during the 20-year period from 1965 to 1985, according to the national Centers for Disease Control, which issued the report.

“Americans are listening to the warnings about smoking and responding in dramatic fashion,” the agency said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “More and more men and women understand the connection between tobacco use and disease and premature death. They are quitting, and teaching children not to start.”

In 1965, 42.4% of adults smoked, the CDC said. Over the next 20 years, the figure dropped one-half of a percentage point each year. Between 1987 and 1990, however, the number of smoking adults fell at a rate of 1.1 percentage points annually, from 28.8% in 1987 to 25.5% in 1990.

The CDC predicted that only 15% of Americans will be smoking by the year 2000 if the trend continues.

“Nearly half, 49%, of adults who have ever smoked have now quit, and that number keeps going up every year,” said Gary A. Giovino, chief of the epidemiology branch of the CDC’s office on smoking and health. “But we have to remain vigilant. We still have to keep at it.”

In another finding, which the CDC described as “especially good news,” the number of black men who smoke has dropped nearly 30% since the mid-1960s.

Health officials attributed the declining figures to the decreasing social acceptability of smoking, the rising price of cigarettes, the growing awareness of the health dangers of “passive” environmental smoke and the growing fears among smokers about health consequences.

News about the health effects “has been out there for a long time, but in recent years many adults are seeing the realities of the epidemic,” Giovino said.

“They are seeing friends, relatives and neighbors dying of lung cancer, other lung diseases and heart disease, and it’s having an impact,” he said. “This (the decline in smoking) is a pleasant surprise, and we’re very encouraged.”

Less encouraging were the results of an unrelated study published in today’s issue of the Lancet, a British medical journal. The Lancet reported that cigarettes are expected to kill one in five people of the current population in industrialized countries, or at least 250 million people--equal to the population of the United States--and a far greater toll than previously believed.

The Lancet forecast was based on a study of 1 million people conducted by Britain’s Imperial Cancer Research Fund, the World Health Organization and the American Cancer Society.

Tobacco industry officials said the CDC report on the decline of smoking in the United States was not surprising.

“This trend has been evident for several years,” said Walker P. Merryman, vice president of the Tobacco Institute. “Smoking is fundamentally a matter of an individual adult’s right to choose, free of harassment from the government or anyone else.

“Nearly 50 million adults in this country have chosen to continue smoking,” Merryman added. “No one would seriously suggest that the American public is uninformed of the possible risks of smoking. (But) adults should be free to make their own decisions based on their beliefs.”

Where There’s Smoke . . .

Here are some of the trends on smoking in the United States:

Percentage of Americans who smoked in 1990: 25.5%

Percentage of Americans who smoked in 1955: 42%

Groups with the highest rates of smokers:

American Indians: 38.1%

High school dropouts: 31.8%

People ages 25-44: 29.7%

Groups with the lowest rates of smokers:

College graduates: 13.5%

People over age 75: 6.5%

The sharpest declines in smoking:

Female high school dropouts ages 20-24: from 45% in 1985 to 33.4% in 1990

Blacks: from 43% in 1965 to 26.2% in 1990

Source: Centers for Disease Control