Smoking in United States of America
In the United States of America, smoking is allowed but tobacco products should follow some regulations. Under these regulations, health warnings on tobacco packaging including cigarettes are mandatory, the minimum legal age for their sales is 21 years, and there are no federal legal restrictions on smoking in public places. While tobacco advertising is regulated, not all forms of their advertising are banned. An excise tax of 32.16% with a total taxation rate of 37.36% is applied on cigarettes. Cigarettes can legally be sold with authorised documents. They may also be purchased through vending machines as well as through online channels. Importing cigarettes for trade is allowed with an appropriate import license. Despite these control measures, prevalence data show that smoking remains an important public health issue in the United States. There were 39.8 million current smokers in the country in 2024. This represents an overall adult smoking prevalence of 14.1%, with higher prevalence among men (17.1%) than among women (11.1%). In comparison, the overall current smoking prevalence was 12.3% in 2022. The adult daily smoking prevalence was recorded to be 10.01% in 2020. Smoking-related mortality also remains significant in the country. In 2021, smoking resulted in 360,370 deaths, including 216,986 male deaths and 143,383 female deaths. This shows that smoking accounted for 10.38% of all deaths in the United States in 2021, with a higher rate among men (11.9%) than among women (8.7%).
Read articles from United States of America
September 11, 2026 by vapingpost.com
Some Sense at Last? Coalition Proposes 80% Tobacco Tax Cut and Legal Vapes to Break Australia’s Black Market
In line with what tobacco harm reduction experts have been suggesting all along, Australia’s opposition party wants to slash tobacco taxes and legalise regulated vapes and nicotine pouches to undermine the country’s booming black market.
September 10, 2026 by tobaccoreporter.com
FDA Names Koplow as Tobacco Center Director
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has selected Bret Koplow, Ph.D., J.D., as director of the Center for Tobacco Products, giving the center a permanent leader with more than a decade of legal, policy, and regulatory experience at the agency. Koplow has served at FDA since 2011, including as senior counselor to the FDA commissioner, where he focused on regulatory, policy, and operational matters involving tobacco products.
September 10, 2026 by 2firsts.com
GSTHR Estimates 200 Million People Use Non-Combustible Nicotine Products as 28 Countries Show Rising Use Alongside Falling Smoking Rates
GSTHR estimates about 200 million people worldwide use what it terms “safer nicotine products,” including vapes, heated tobacco, nicotine pouches and snus. The report says use of non-combustible products rose while smoking rates fell in 28 countries analyzed.
September 10, 2026 by regulatorwatch.com
Yes, It Is a War | Health Economist Rebukes FDA’s Campaign Against Vaping | RegWatch
The language around vaping has become a policy tool in itself. Describe a product mainly through fear, and the public may never hear the more important comparison: continued smoking versus switching away from combustion. A health economist’s criticism of the FDA campaign highlights the cost of messaging that treats caution as neutrality. Public health should inform smokers clearly, not make lower-risk choices sound too dangerous to consider.
September 09, 2026 by substack.com
When Nicotine Is Treated as Synonymous with Smoking, Science—and People—Lose
Equating nicotine with smoking is one of the most damaging shortcuts in public health communication. Nicotine can cause dependence, but the major burden of disease comes from inhaling smoke from combustible tobacco. Blurring that distinction leaves smokers confused about safer alternatives and less able to judge their options realistically. Clearer policy should target the harms of combustion while giving adults honest information about lower-risk nicotine products.
September 04, 2026 by github.io
SRNT Recommendations to US Physicians on Nicotine E-Cigarettes
Clinical guidance on e-cigarettes is moving from avoidance towards structured, evidence-informed advice. The SRNT recommendations recognise that adult smokers are already asking clinicians about vaping, and that many need options beyond traditional cessation tools. That shift matters because shared decision-making requires more than caution; it requires clear comparisons between continued smoking, complete switching and nicotine abstinence. Harm reduction belongs in the clinical conversation when it helps patients move away from combustion.
September 04, 2026 by substack.com
Part One: From Pesticide to NRT: A Regulatory History of Nicotine
Nicotine’s history is far more complex than the way it is usually discussed. The same substance has been framed as poison, dependence driver, medicine and harm reduction tool, depending on dose, delivery and context. That matters because public health debates often flatten nicotine into a single moral category. Better policy starts by separating the substance from the smoke, the risk from the rhetoric, and the product from the purpose it may serve.
September 03, 2026 by snusforumet.se
Arielle Selya: The scientist who challenged the gateway theory
The gateway theory has shaped nicotine policy for years, often turning vaping into a presumed pathway to smoking rather than a potential route away from it. Challenging that assumption matters because policy should follow observed behaviour, not fears repeated until they sound like evidence. Research that separates correlation from causation can help clarify whether safer nicotine products are driving harm or displacing cigarettes. Public health needs that distinction before it builds restrictions around a theory.
September 03, 2026 by snusforumet.se
Arielle Selya: The scientist who challenged the gateway theory
The gateway theory has shaped nicotine policy for years, often turning vaping into a presumed pathway to smoking rather than a potential route away from it. Challenging that assumption matters because policy should follow observed behaviour, not fears repeated until they sound like evidence. Research that separates correlation from causation can help clarify whether safer nicotine products are driving harm or displacing cigarettes. Public health needs that distinction before it builds restrictions around a theory.
September 03, 2026 by clearingtheair.eu
Tobacco Control Advocates: Big Tobacco’s Useful Idiots
Tobacco control loses credibility when opposition to industry turns into opposition to harm reduction itself. Cigarette companies deserve scrutiny, but that does not make every argument for safer nicotine products a tobacco industry tactic. Adult smokers are poorly served by a debate that treats reduced-risk options as contamination rather than opportunity. Public health should be able to reject industry misconduct while still recognising evidence that helps people move away from combustion.