NEW YORK (CNN) — He’s at it again. After naming tall sugary drinks Public Enemy No. 1, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday unveiled another public health initiative. This one would force city retailers to keep tobacco products out of sight.

But does out of sight necessarily mean out of mind?

“Young people are targets of marketing and the availability of cigarettes,” said the mayor. The legislation “will help prevent another generation from the ill health and shorter life expectancy that comes with smoking.”

It’s just the latest in a string of New York health initiatives blamed by some for eroding personal freedoms and contributing to a so-called nanny-state.

Last week a New York judge invalidated the city’s ban on sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces. It was Bloomberg who first championed that ban, calling it part of a cure for New York’s “obesity epidemic.”

Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling called the drink restrictions “arbitrary and capricious.” The judges decision is under appeal.

Under the Tobacco Product Display Restriction bill, sellers would have to keep tobacco products hidden, in cabinets, under the counter or behind a curtain, except during a purchase by an adult or during restocking.

If it passes, New York would become the nation’s first city to enact such a law, Bloomberg said.

The mayor said the city is trying to dissuade customers from viewing cigarettes as “normal.”

“Smoking is going to kill these kids,” he said Monday on CNN’s “The Lead” in an interview with Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper. “It’s going to leave them with not the great career prospects that you’d like, not the education that you’d like.”

Opposition to the measure was not long in coming.

“The notion of forcing licensed, tax-collecting, law-abiding retailers to hide their tobacco inventory is patently absurd,” said Jim Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores, which says it represents some 1,600 retail stores.

“This proposal arises from a wild theory that the mere sight of packs of cigarettes on a wall behind the store counter compels kids to start smoking,” Calvin continuted.

A spokesman for the parent company of Philip Morris USA, whose cigarette brands include Marlboro, Chesterfield and Virginia Slims, said the manufacturer opposes the measure because “we believe it goes too far.”

“We supported enactment of federal legislation in 2009 that gave FDA the power to regulate tobacco products, including at retail,” David Sutton, communications and media representative for Altria Group, said in a statement. “To the extent that this proposed law would ban the display of products to adult tobacco consumers, we believe it goes too far.”

New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas A. Farley said smoking rates among New York’s young people have remained flat since 2007. Bloomberg’s bill, he said, is an important next step in protecting teens from tobacco.

New York’s comprehensive smoking prevention program has led to a decrease in the smoking rate in adults, Farley said.

Another piece of legislation, the Sensible Tobacco Enforcement bill, targets illegal cigarette smuggling. The bill would increase penalties for retailers who sell tobacco without a license or fail to pay tobacco taxes. It would also prohibit the sale of discounted tobacco products.

Retailers could continue to advertise tobacco products and their price information under the proposed legislation.

In 1988, New York City passed the Smoke Free Air Act, which banned smoking in public restrooms and taxicabs.

Lawmakers toughened the law in 2002, to ban smoking in public indoor areas, including restaurants and bars.

In 2011, Bloomberg signed a bill banning smoking in many other public places, including New York City parks and public beaches.

(CNN) — The Department of Justice has sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner saying it will not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a federal appeals court ruling that blocked new graphic warnings on cigarette packages.

The government had until April 5 to appeal the ruling, which struck down the mandate, saying the requirements were a violation of free speech protections.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration instead will “undertake research to support a new rule-making consistent with the Tobacco Control Act,” the letter said, meaning the FDA will have to create new warning labels.

The FDA didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — President’s Obama’s call for a 94-cent-a-pack hike on federal cigarette taxes to fund early childhood education programs is controversial.

Anti-smoking groups applaud the proposal, but some tax experts and tobacco companies are against it.

The case for the tax. The tax is being presented as way to fund education and reduce smoking rates. It would raise roughly $78 billion over 10 years.

“The proposed tobacco tax increase would have substantial public health benefits, particularly for young Americans,” the president’s budget read. “Researchers have found that raising taxes on cigarettes significantly reduces consumption, with especially large effects on youth smoking.”

After a 62-cent-a-pack tax hike was passed in 2009, cigarette sales dropped by 10%, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

There’s also little doubt that fewer people smoking is a good thing for society. Costs related to smoking amount to $193 billion a year in both direct medical payments and lost productivity, according to a Centers for Disease Control study done during the early part of the last decade. Smoking kills about 443,000 people each year.

Passing the tax “would be a giant step toward winning the fight against tobacco, the nation’s number one cause of preventable death,” Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said in a statement.

Why it may be a bad idea. The biggest argument against the tax is that it will fund early childhood education on the backs of the poor. Not only is the tax not progressive – it does not go up the more money one makes — but a higher percent of smokers are middle or low income.

The median household income for a smoker in 2011 was $27,700 compared to $45,761 for nonsmokers, according to Reynolds American, a cigarette maker which is, unsurprisingly, against the tax.

Nearly half of all smokers had a household income of less than $25,000 a year. Meanwhile, under 15% of smokers had a household income over $75,000.

“The idea of increasing taxes on low- to middle-income Americans at this time is ludicrous,” Bryan Hatchell, a spokesman for Reynolds American, said in a statement. “The effect of the payroll tax increase this year, along with higher gas and food prices, have hit hard millions of Americans who are simply trying to keep their heads above water financially.”

Anti-smoking groups counter that the poor are especially vulnerable to smoking’s ill effects, as they often lack healthcare and are less prepared financially to deal with an illness.

Cigarette taxes across the nation. Many smokers already pay a high tax rate for cigarettes. The current federal tax rate is $1.01 a pack, but the taxes don’t stop there. So Obama is proposing an increase to $1.95 a pack.

Some states and municipalities have also used cigarette taxes as a cash cow for years. In New York City, the country’s highest-tax area, combined state and local taxes add up to $5.85 a pack, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. In Manhattan, a pack of cigarettes can cost $14, while at an airport duty free shop they can be as low as $3 or $4 a pack.

But the taxes are low in other states. In Missouri, state taxes are just 17 cents a pack. The average price of a pack of cigarettes nationwide is $6, with taxes making up $2.49 of that.

Some economists question how wise it is to fund what will presumably be a long term program — early childhood education — with revenue that will likely fall over time. About 20% of Americans smoke, a number that has dropped considerably over the past several decades. The tax itself is specifically designed to get people to stop buying cigarettes.

Others say that while the tax won’t be to much of a burden on the overall economy, it will hit smokers and those that work in the industry hard. They say the president could raise far more money by focusing on spending cuts.

“It’s excellent politics, but it doesn’t make good economics,” said William McBride, chief economist at the Tax Foundation, a think tank that advocates for lower taxes.

NEW YORK (WITI) — New York lawmakers are considering whether to raise the age of when someone can legally smoke.

A proposal would increase the minimum age on tobacco purchases from 18 to 21.

The idea was presented Monday, April 22nd by the New York City Council Speaker along with the city’s Health Commissioner.

Recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed stores keeping cigarettes out of public sight, to avoid children seeing the products.

New York has a ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and other indoor establishments.

(CNN) — Here’s something to think about the next time you put a cigarette to your lips: The skin around those lips is going to look older, faster.

You’re also more likely to get bags under your eyes sooner. And jowls. And more wrinkles around those lips.

Researchers in Ohio studied the physical differences between the faces of nonsmokers and their twins who smoked and found confirmation of a long-held belief: Smoking does indeed age you.

The study, by researchers at the Department of Plastic Surgery at Case Western Reserve University, looked at 79 sets of twins between the ages of 18 and 78 at the annual August gathering of twins in Twinsburg, Ohio. Each person had his or her picture taken by a professional photographer.

The photos were divided into two categories. The first group was 45 sets of twins in which one smoked and the other didn’t. The other group was made up of smokers, but in each set, one twin had smoked at least five years longer than the other.

Two doctors and a medical student studied photographs of the twins and assigned scores to their facial features.

In the case of the first group, the judges said the smoking twin appeared older 57% of the time.

For the second set, the longer-smoking twin looked older more than 63% of the time, meaning the aging differences could set in after just five years.

“This study confirms some of what was believed in the most scientific way possible,” said Dr. Bahman Guyuron, who led the research. “With longer follow-up, we believe that every smoking twin might have exhibited a difference in aging.”

The study looked at other aging factors — alcohol consumption, stress and sunscreen use, for instance — and found they were similar in these sets of twins. It didn’t address changes in the twins’ living environment or diet.

“Smoking reduces the collagen formation, results in collagen degradation and reduces the skin circulation,” Guyuron said. “Additionally, nicotine reduces the skin thickness. All of these reduce skin elasticity and (cause) premature aging.”

The study was published in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- E-cigarettes, the smokeless electronic cigarettes may be cutting edge and cost-effective, but is it costing you your body? For more than a decade users have been inhaling substances that are not regulated, but all of that is about to change.

Susanna Ryan and her sister started Brew City Vape a year and a half ago and their e-cigarette business has skyrocketed. The shop offers different levels of nicotine and endless flavor options.

E-cigarettes have a cartridge filled with nicotine and other substances. When it’s heated, through an electric charger, the user inhales the liquid and exhales the vapor. It mimics the smoking sensation without the tar and 4,000 other chemicals in cigarettes.

“It was organically developed by a pharmacist in China because he saw his father die of lung cancer and he was hoping to make a product that would help smokers be safer,” said Dr. Ileen Gilbert, a pulmonologist at Froedtert and The Medical College of Wisconsin.

E-cigarettes are smokeless, but not necessarily harmless.

Initially, the majority of the liquid used was sent from China.

Dr. Ileen Gilbert says the government got concerned after analyzing a batch.

“The Food and Drug Administration actually analyzed it the concentration and the content was not what was in the package," Dr. Gilbert said.

40 attorneys general urged the FDA to enforce some controls. Recently the FDA announced it will regulate e-cigarettes as a tobacco product.

“That’s the act that has prevented the selling of cigarettes to minors that has taken out the flavoring that appeal to children,” Dr. Gilbert added.

But for many, the flavor is part of the draw.

“I love the fact you can try other flavors, and the minute I took a hit of it I was like 'this is it. This is going to work.' It’s been almost two months now, I don`t want a cigarette,” said Gloria Mendoza.

Although not marketed as a smoking cessation device, users like Mendoza say since the swap she’s stopped smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

“I do want to work on leveling down the nicotine -- so that’s what’s nice. I can work on that, where as a cigarette you can’t do that," Mendoza said.

As regulation looms, it's stirring up awareness and prompting studies.

“This could be a very important to employ in a full service program for smoking cessation," Dr. Gilbert said.

While there could be some benefits, Dr. Gilbert says negatives are still unknown.

"The nicotine itself, even if there were no additional chemicals, is one of the most highly addictive substances," Dr. Gilbert said.

Countless people are inhaling the nicotine and other substances in e-cigarettes without knowing the possible health impact.

“When the FDA did seize batches of the e-cigarette, there were nitrosamines which is a known carcinogen. There is propylene glycol which is something very close to antifreeze,” Dr. Gilbert said.

Creating an improved e-liquid was the goal of Christian Berkey -- founder and CEO of Johnson Creek Enterprises now located in Hartland.

“I was trying to find a way to create smoke juice that tasted great, that didn’t have all the chemicals," Berkey said.

Johnson Creek makes smoke juice from scratch. Berkey says the business has grown exponentially.

“Now Johnson Creek is the second largest maker of smoke juice in the world," Berkey said.

Berkey said he's ready for the FDA to mandate a host of protocols.

"There’s a whole set of standards, be it advertising and marketing standards, analysis standards, GNPS purity standards that regulation is going to require of everyone in our industry and a vast majority of these things Johnson Creek already does. In fact, many of them we pioneered," Berkey said.

While the government shutdown did delay the regulations, they could come as early as this year.

“Ultimately it brings the quality to the top and it gives smokers again a really viable choice for the first time ever,” Berkey said.

Dr. Gilbert believes the government regulations may also include some sort of quality and safety control. There have been a few case studies done, one in which the battery operated device blew up, injuring the user.

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- 50 years ago January 11th, the United States Surgeon General released a report on smoking and health which, for the first time, linked smoking to lung cancer and heart disease. Today, health officials are continuing to spread the message that smoking is dangerous to your health.

Jarvis West says he was a smoker before he got involved with an organization working to spread the word about the dangers of tobacco use.

"I was a smoker about three months ago, but then I got involved with the Wisconsin African-American Tobacco Prevention Network," West said.

Cathy Peters with the American Cancer Society Action Network says 50 years ago, about 40% of people smoked, and today, it's about 19%.

Although there has been progress seen in the declining number of smokers, there's still a long way to go.

"There`s still 19% of people in Wisconsin who are smoking and that means about 7,000 people are dying every year in Wisconsin from tobacco-related illnesses," Peters said.

Peters says the American Cancer Society's Action Network has been participating in a number of different policy initiatives to help drive those numbers down.

"Increasing the prices of tobacco products through tobacco taxes. One of the things we would like to see Wisconsin do is close some of the loopholes related to smokeless tobacco products as well as what they`re calling little cigars," Peters said.

Meanwhile, they'll continue to use the anniversary as a way to get the word out about the dangers of smoking.

Reports show that there are 44 million Americans who still smoke.

CLICK HERE to view the American Cancer Society's "Guide to Quitting Smoking."

(CNN) — Fifty years ago, smoking was linked to cancer in the first surgeon general’s report on tobacco.

On Friday, Dr. Boris Lushniak, the acting surgeon general, issued the 32nd report on tobacco, saying “enough is enough.” His goal: eliminating the use of cigarettes and tobacco.

In 1964, when Dr. Luther Terry released the first surgeon general’s report, the public learned smoking causes lung cancer. At the time, 42% of American adults smoked, Lushniak says.

Since then, “Tobacco has killed more than 20 million people prematurely,” says Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the forward to the new report.

The number of smokers has dropped to 18% in 2012, according to the latest estimates published Thursday by the CDC.

But “that still translates into 45 million people, including 3 million kids,” Lushniak says. “One out of three cancers is caused by tobacco (and other smoking products).”

Even though the number of smokers has gone down, the figures of those dying from disease linked to tobacco products are up.

While 440,000 people died from smoking-related causes in 2008, that number has risen to 480,000 people dying each year, according to the report.

And even though the latest data suggests 87% of lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking and secondhand smoke, more smokers age 35 and older die from heart disease than lung cancer.

Another alarming milestone, according to the report, is that women have caught up to men and for the first time are just as likely as men to die from smoking-related diseases.

What’s new

Thirteen cancers are now linked to smoking and secondhand smoke. Liver and colorectal cancer are added in this report. So far, there’s not enough evidence to say smoking causes breast cancer. Smoking does not cause prostate cancer, according to existing evidence, according to the report.

Another finding: “Exposure to secondhand smoke is a cause of stroke,” according to the report. People who don’t smoke themselves but are exposed to secondhand smoke have a 20% to 30% increased risk for a stroke.

For the first time, the report found that smoking can cause diabetes, erectile dysfunction, rheumatoid arthritis, macular degeneration, ectopic pregnancies and impaired immune function. Smokers have a 30% to 40% increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes compared with nonsmokers.

And women who smoke early in their pregnancies put their unborn at risk of having cleft palates or cleft lips, according to the report.

Some 5.6 million children living today will die early because of smoking if things don’t change, the report warns. That’s one in 13 children, Lushniak says.

Lushniak appears passionate about wanting to make smoking a thing of the past.

The tools to do so already exist, he says, including making tobacco products more expensive. High-impact anti-smoking media campaigns, such as one the CDC conducted last year, as well as full access to smoking cessation programs may help.

Smoke-free laws are needed across the United States, Lushniak says. “It’s embarrassing in this country only half our population is covered by those laws.”

He says he believes using the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate tobacco products effectively and funding comprehensive statewide tobacco control programs at CDC-recommended levels will also help reduce smoking.

“But the current rate of progress in tobacco control is not fast enough. More needs to be done,” according to the report.

The CDC recommends spending $12 per person from taxes and tobacco settlement money to reduce smoking rates, Lushniak says. “Right now, only just over a buck-fifty is spent per person.”

His message to current smokers: “Tell them it’s never too late to stop. It’s best to quit smoking completely. Talk to your doctor, call 1-800-QUIT-NOW.”

He also recommends supporting those who want to quit. “It’s good for their health, your family’s health and the nation’s health.”

Goal of a tobacco-free generation

Lushniak says he has a new formula to create a smoke-free generation. It can’t just be a federal government attack on tobacco, he says; the battle needs to be fought on the local level, too, with nongovernmental agencies, academia, faith-based organizations, health care professionals and businesses.

Lushniak has his work cut out for him. He has to devise a plan to prevent teens from wanting to smoke — most adult smokers begin smoking as teenagers, according to the Mayo Clinic. The new report backs that up, stating that 87% of smokers had their first puff on a cigarette under the age of 18.

And now kids have a new enticement: e-cigarettes. Last year, a CDC report found the percentage of middle and high school students trying electronic cigarettes doubled from 3.3% to 6.8%.

While the safety of e-cigarettes is still being hashed out, some health officials fear these electronic devices may be a gateway to tobacco cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Young people today don’t write letters anymore because they prefer to text, Lushniak says. He wants the younger generation to think of smoking like writing a letter — that it’s no longer in vogue.

As surgeon general, Lushniak oversees more than 6,500 public health professionals making up the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. It’s the first uniformed service to go entirely smoke free, he says; the others include the Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It is my sincere hope that 50 years from now we won’t need another (surgeon general’s) report on smoking and health, because tobacco-related disease and death will be a thing of the past,” Lushniak writes in the report.

(CNN) — Every day, more than 3,200 kids under the age of 18 smoke a cigarette for the first time. About 700 of those become daily smokers.

Those are two reasons, the Food and Drug Administration says, why it has launched a national education campaign aimed at preventing those between the ages of 12 and 17 from trying cigarettes or — for those already experimenting — from becoming regular smokers.

“The Real Cost” campaign seeks to educate these “at-risk” teenagers by spotlighting the health hazards of smoking in a series of television, radio, print and online ads. These ads show the costs of smoking, from skin damage to gum disease and from tooth loss to a loss of control over their lives because of from addiction.

About nine of 10 regular smokers had their first cigarettes by the time they were 18, said FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg.

Because teenage brains are still developing, they are more susceptible to nicotine addiction, the FDA said.

“We know from research that there is a group of of youth — 12 to 17 — who are more vulnerable, partly because of the nature of their lives — you know, chaotic lives, lots of stress, lack of control,” Hamburg said.

Some live with smokers, “which dramatically increases the risk, and so we’re hoping that we can potentially interrupt a deadly cycle,” she said.

“We can help these teens understand the real consequences of smoking, the real costs of smoking to them, so that they won’t take up smoking if they’re on the cusp and will stop smoking if they’ve already started.”

Smoking as an adolescent can stunt growth, stain teeth and cause premature wrinkles, health officials say, and smokeless tobacco can cause mouth, esophagus and pancreas cancers. Studies have estimated that every cigarette smoked shaves 11 minutes off your life.

In 2009, the Tobacco Control Act became law, giving the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products to protect public health, including manufacturing, distribution and marketing.

The law looks to prevent and reduce smoking by kids under 18, the legal age to buy tobacco products. These new ads are the first of several planned education campaigns, but it’s not the only effort.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is continuing its “Tips From Former Smokers” campaign with a new set of anti-smoking ads.

One of the more striking ads features Terrie Hall, who had her larynx (commonly called the voice box) removed as a result of the ravages of oral and throat cancers. Hall, who had started smoking as a teen, died in September at 53 from complications of smoking.

RJ Reynolds, the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S., runs a youth tobacco prevention program called Right Decisions Right Now: Be Tobacco Free.

Company spokeswoman Jane Seccombe said she could not comment on on the FDA’s new campaign until she saw the ads. But she says Right Decisions Right Now has been up and running for more than 20 years and is used by more than 20,000 middle schools and community groups like the Boy Scouts of America and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

“RDRN is part of our company’s long-term initiative to transform the tobacco industry,” said Laura Leigh Oyler, a public policy director at the company. “Over the past 20 years, youth tobacco prevention efforts and programs have had a big impact on reducing teen smoking, now at a historic low, and we are actively working on ways to accelerate the decline in youth tobacco use.”

But “the tobacco industry has very aggressively been advertising for years, for decades, including to youth,” Hamburg said. “We think we can make a difference, because we have targeted messages that will resonate.”

The initial response from teens who participated in focus groups to evaluate the ads for effectiveness, she says, has been positive. The agency plans to conduct a study following 8,000 kids between the ages of 11 and 16 and will do face-to-face interviews gathering data on adolescents’ awareness, attitudes and beliefs about smoking tobacco.

Over the next two years, the FDA will launch additional campaigns targeting specific groups including multicultural, rural and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) youths. Its goal is to reduce the number of teenage cigarette smokers by 300,000 over the next three years.

“We will make an important contribution to reducing the toll of preventable death, disease and disability from cigarettes and tobacco use. It is astounding how the burden of tobacco continues to take a toll on the American people.” Hamburg said.

“Every year, some 480,000 people die an early, premature death because of tobacco use. It costs the health care system over $289 billion and also lost productivity costs, according to a recent estimate. And our youth are at risk. … So if we can reach them and stop them, we can prevent a life-long addiction and all of the concomitant disability and disease and early death.”

Depending on who you ask -- sitting is as bad as smoking. And the average American spends 95% of their day sitting down. But, one local company is looking to change that. Jonathan Webb of KI joins Real Milwaukee with the details.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Wisconsin smokers who see doctors at several clinics in the Milwaukee, Madison and Janesville areas for any reason will be automatically offered free help in quitting under an experimental study.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports (http://bit.ly/1mM6bDI ) the research will focus on determining the most effective approaches for helping patients quit smoking. It’s being funded by a $12 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. It’s the largest grant the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention has received since it was founded in 1992.

The study is expected to provide counseling and-or medication for more than 2,000 people at 20 clinics over five years.

Researchers know counseling and medication work, but don’t know how much of each works best, and how to best deliver that treatment systematically.

MADISON (WITI) — The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) announced on Monday, December 8th that the state’s adult smoking rate is at the lowest rate ever recorded in Wisconsin.  The adult smoking rate is at 18%, a two percentage point drop from 2012, and is consistent with the national smoking rate of 17.8% recently announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The data from the Wisconsin Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey (BRFSS) also shows that smoking rates remain high among specific groups. For example, the survey found that 33% of Wisconsin residents who are low income or have less than a high school degree still smoke.

Meanwhile, sales of tobacco to underage youth also declined in 2014 to 6.4%; down from 7.3% in 2013. The Department credits responsible retailers and available resources for that decline.

In addition, the 2014 Youth Tobacco Survey (YTS) by the UW-Milwaukee Center for Urban Initiatives and Research found that while youth smoking was down, the use of smokeless tobacco products among high school youth increased from 6% in 2012 to nearly 10% in 2014. The study also found that the use of e-cigarettes by Wisconsin high school students was 75% higher than the national average.

Resources are available for Wisconsin residents who want to quit tobacco, including the Wisconsin Tobacco Quit Line at 1-800-QUIT-NOW, which offers free help and medications.

For information about the Wisconsin Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, CLICK HERE.

(CNN) — Teens are losing some of their rebellious reputation with this news from the federal government.

The latest Monitoring the Future survey, released on Tuesday by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, finds children are smoking fewer cigarettes, drinking less alcohol and abusing fewer prescription and synthetic drugs.

Marijuana rates are stable, even with the increase in the number of states that allow people to use marijuana recreationally. Some 6.5% of eighth graders said they had smoked marijuana in the past month, 16.6% of 10th graders did and 21.2% of 12th graders had, according to the survey.

In states with medical marijuana laws, 40% of 12th graders who reported using marijuana in the past year said they had it contained in food. That’s compared to 26% who said the same in states where the drug is not legal for any kind of use.

There has been a decline in the number of children trying synthetic drugs like K2/Special, also known as synthetic marijuana, in the two years the survey has measured this in all three grades. Use among 12th graders this year was 5.8%, compared to 7.9% last year and 11.3% in 2012, the survey said.

There was also a sharp drop in binge drinking among high school seniors, which is now under 20%, compared to 1998 when binge drinking among high school seniors was at a peak of 31.5%.

The number of young adults who have tried e-cigarettes is up, according to this report, but that’s in large part because e-cigarette use has never been measured before by this survey.

An unrelated study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics found that 29% of teens surveyed in Hawaii in 2013 used e-cigarettes, a number much higher than reported in previous surveys.

The general decline in drug and alcohol use by teens is part of a two-decade long trend among American teens.

“The main highlight is that for most indicators the news is very good,” said NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow. A research psychiatrist and scientist, Volkow said she is encouraged by this significant decline, particularly in synthetic drugs and prescription drugs, which had been a growing problem for teens. She doesn’t, however, think parents and teachers should be complacent. “We need to continue to be very aggressive as far as interventions and to continue to curb abuse.”

An increasing number of children have tried e-cigarettes: Some 17% of 12th graders surveyed had used them in the last month. Sixteen percent of 10th graders did, as had 8% of eighth graders. “If you think about a new device, those rates are very high,” Volkow said.

The patterns for other drug use are similar to other surveys. Researchers have seen a decline over the past five years in use of prescription pain medicine and haven’t seen an uptick in use of other drugs like heroin to compensate for the decline. The rate of abuse of the painkiller Vicodin, for instance, has dropped significantly from the peak abuse use five years ago, according to Volkow. It fell from 9.5% of those surveyed using it to 4.8% now. “This is quite significant because it is so addictive,” Volkow said.

She credited an increase in education campaigns and an increased awareness in the health care system about the abuse for slowing the abuse of these drugs. Government drug buy-back programs have also had an impact, Volkow said.

“We still have a lot of work to do and we can still bring those numbers realistically lower,” Volkow said. Compared to other countries, even with the decline in use, the United States still has a higher drug use rate than many other countries. “We don’t (want to) stand out as a country with high rates of drug abuse among teenagers.”

(CNN) — A provocative new music video, which will air during the Grammys, hopes to persuade teens never to start smoking.

The video plays off the term “left swipe,” which with the popularity of dating apps like Tinder and OKCupid has come to define someone as unattractive. If you like someone on a dating app, you swipe them right. If you don’t like them, you give them a “left swipe.”

In the video, featuring musical performers Becky G, Fifth Harmony and a host of Internet stars including Grace Helbig, Harley Morenstein and King Bach, each time a profile picture appears with someone smoking, there is a call to #LeftSwipeDat.

“Yeah, you work out, you are in shape, OK. I like the six-pack abs, not the six packs a day,” sings Becky G.

The video is part of the “truth” campaign, one of the largest national youth smoking-prevention initiatives in the country, and is directed and funded by the national public foundation Legacy.

“We wanted to debunk a few things here,” said Robin Koval, chief executive officer and president of Legacy. “One, (smoking) doesn’t make you more attractive, and we know the thing that young people care about most is connecting with other people, especially for romantic opportunities, and that social smoking, whatever you call it, light smoking, intermittent smoking, is smoking.

“From our perspective, if you light it, you should left-swipe it. It’s just a bad idea.”

Some research shows how dating profiles featuring smoking get less traction than those that do not.

The anti-smoking group Action on Smoking & Health conducted an experiment. It created two identical profiles — “Heather” and “Sara” — on the dating app Tinder, each featuring the same attractive woman. Heather was smoking; Sara was not.

Heather and Sara then both swiped right on 1,000 men over a week, again meaning they liked them. Fifty-four percent of the men chose Sara, the nonsmoking profile, while 29% selected Heather, the profile with a cigarette, according to the group’s findings.

The campaign comes as cigarette smoking has reached historic lows among teens, according to the latest Monitoring the Future survey by the University of Michigan, released in December.

Among eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders who were polled in 1997, 28% said they smoked in the prior month. That number dropped to 8% in 2014, according to the report, which is amazing.

But there are reasons to be concerned, including how teens seem to have dramatically different perceptions about the impact of social smoking versus being a regular smoker.

“One of the things we see is a belief among young people that if you only smoke occasionally, light smoking or intermittent smoking, that somehow that’s not as dangerous,” Koval said.

In a recent study, though most teens said they believe that heavy smoking is harmful, only 64% said light smoking, consuming a few cigarettes a day, was very harmful. Nearly 25% believed that intermittent smoking caused little or no harm, according to the survey of nearly 25,000 teens in the United States and showcased in the Journal of Pediatrics.

E-cigarette use among teens is also on the rise: Seventeen percent of 12th-graders, 16% of 10th-graders and 8% of eighth-graders said they had used them in the past month, according to the recent Monitoring the Future survey.

And 23% of 12th-graders said they smoked tobacco using a hookah in the past year in 2014, up from 17% in 2010. In addition, 19% said they smoked small or little cigars, often called cigarillos, in 2014, down from 23% in 2010.

“Young people just don’t understand that a little cigar is just as dangerous as a regular cigarette,” Koval said. “It’s very concerning and really, really dangerous. … We know for sure that combustible tobacco will kill you.”

The video marks a departure from other ad campaigns, including some by the FDA last year, that try to graphically show teens the health risks associated with smoking.

Koval says those ads are effective too, but this approach may have more impact when it comes to changing perceptions.

Young people think they are “never going to get old. They are never going to get sick. They don’t even really think their social smoking, if you will, behavior is really real smoking or that dangerous,” she said. “Doing it when they’re out with others, believing that it makes them more attractive, that it helps them connect with others is an increasing trend.”

Koval would not reveal the cost of airing the 60-second version during the Grammys but said the move clearly represents a “significant” investment.

“It’s very hard to aggregate live audiences of young people, the moments when you can do that are far and few between, so we want to take advantage of them,” she said.

“We know that youth will be watching.”

And the hope is that they won’t just watch but will share the video on social media along with the hashtag #LeftSwipeDat.

(CNN) — More people may die from undiagnosed lung cancer because they don’t qualify for low-dose CT scans, according to a study by Mayo Clinic researchers. The researchers blame current screening guidelines that have remained the same despite the decline in smoking rates in the U.S.

“Our data raise questions about the current recommendations,” said Mayo pulmonologist, Dr. David E. Midthun, one of the study authors. “We do not have the best tool to identify who is at risk for lung cancer.”

Current U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines recommend annual low-dose CT screening for adults age 55 to 80 who have smoked 30 pack-years (one pack a day for 30 years), and who currently smoke or have stopped smoking within the last 15 years. This criteria is used by doctors and insurance companies to recommend and pay for scans.

According to the researchers, the percentage of lung cancer patients who smoked at least 30 pack-years declined over the study period while the proportion of cancer patients who had quit for more than 15 years rose.

“As smokers quit earlier and stay off cigarettes longer, fewer are eligible for CT screening, which has been proven effective in saving lives,” said epidemiologist Dr. Ping Yang in a statement released by the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center. “Patients who do eventually develop lung cancer are diagnosed at a later stage when treatment can no longer result in a cure.”

Over the study period the percentage of lung cancer patients who would have been eligible for CT screening under current guidelines fell dramatically: from 56.8% in 1984-1990 to 43.3% in 2005-2011. The proportion of men who would have been eligible decreased from 60% to 49.7%, while the percentage of women dropped from 52.3% to 36.6%.

Researchers worry about the trend. “We don’t want to disincentive patients to stop smoking,” Midthun told CNN in a phone interview. “When I told one of my patients about the study, his first question was, ‘If I stop smoking will I have to stop screening?'”

“We want people to stop smoking, and we don’t want them to lie or continue smoking just so they can be screened,” added Midthun. “We need better tools to make risk calculations for those who should be screened.”

The Mayo study did not take into account other risk factors for lung cancer, such as personal and family history of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), because they are not in the current guidelines for reimbursement. COPD “raises a person’s risk for lung cancer by four to six times,” said Midthun. “Only age and pack year history are in the guidelines.”

“There’s nothing magical in 30-year pack history,” added Midthun. He told CNN that age is an equally important factor. “For example, if a person stops smoking at age 55, his risk of lung cancer at age 70 is higher than it was at age 55 when he quit.”

The study was published in the February 24, 2015 issue of JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association. It was funded by the Mayo Clinic and grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Aging.

MILWAUKEE (WITI) — On Tuesday, April 28th, more than 40 area organizations will kick-off a month dedicated to connecting area residents with smoking cessation resources.

While more individuals are quitting than ever before, more than 820,450 adults still smoke in Wisconsin, and tobacco use is the No. 1 cause of preventable deaths.

“Tobacco-related medical expenses cost Wisconsin residents $3 billion dollars annually and more than 7,000 deaths are associated with tobacco use each year statewide,” said City of Milwaukee Commissioner of Health Bevan K. Baker. “This month, we urge smokers to talk to their health care providers about resources available to help them take a step toward quitting successfully.”

Find helpful tools online at QuittersCircle.com and download the Plan Q app from the App Store. Use login code: WISCQUITS.

For additional support, call the American Lung Association HelpLine at 1-800-LUNGUSA or the Wisconsin Tobacco Quit Line at 1-800-QUIT-NOW.

Use #WISCQUITS to share your quit story on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

(CNN) — Anyone who has tried to quit smoking knows the mind games required to resist cravings and tolerate withdrawal headaches and lethargy. A new study suggests that some hopeful quitters are just more mentally equipped to handle the challenge than others.

Researchers looked at the brain activity of a group of 85 heavy smokers (at least 10 cigarettes a day) using a method called fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging. They found that people who had stronger connections between two regions of the brain — one involved in reward, the other in controlling impulsive behavior — were more likely to be successful at giving up smoking, at least for 10 weeks.

“This is the largest study to date where we’ve attempted to identify neural markers, or predictors, of later success in quitting smoking,” said Joseph McClernon, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University, who led the current study. Previous research has told us a lot about how long-term smoking alters the brain, and what the brain of a nonsmoker looks like.

In the study, published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers did fMRI scanning on participants one month before their quit date. Then on their quit date, participants received nicotine patches and checked in with the researchers over the following 10 weeks about whether they relapsed.

The participants who did not relapse could have a good shot of being out of the woods. “Most of the action relating to beating nicotine addiction takes place within the first month or two,” said Jonathan Foulds, professor of public health sciences and psychiatry at Penn State University.

The key difference among the participants who managed not to light up again came down to an area called the insula, a prune-sized section that lies deep in the brain. Those with the most activity in the insula were the ones who went on to successfully quit weeks later.

Although it is unclear what the insula is doing, researchers think it acts like a bridge, connecting the reward region with the behavior control regions. The insula has also been linked to other types of drug addiction such as alcoholism.

“It’s a frontier area, and one that we are interested in going after in terms of interventions for smoking cessation,” McClernon said.

The idea is that doctors could one day try to identify smokers who have poor connectivity in this important insula region. Those who do could benefit from therapies such as neurofeedback or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to strengthen the connectivity.

Although the effectiveness of these therapies for smoking cessation is still being investigated, the current findings could at least suggest an area of the brain that researchers could target, McClernon said. His group is currently testing whether neurofeedback that involves asking people to recall a time that they successfully resisted a temptation could increase connectivity through the insula.

In addition, people with poor brain connectivity might need more help in quitting smoking, such as possibly giving successful quitters monetary rewards, McClernon noted.

Another recent study suggested that fMRI could become a routine part of treating conditions, such as depression. If brain connectivity and the insula region turns out to be the key to quitting smoking, scans could also become part of smoking cessation programs.

For his part, however, Foulds said there is not enough known about TMS or neurofeedback to gauge whether the current findings could help advance those therapies, and that they will probably not be affordable options anyway.

NEW YORK — CVS pharmacies is pulling out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce amid reports that the lobbying group worked on behalf of tobacco companies to stamp down global anti-smoking laws.

The New York Times reported last week that the chamber — and its foreign affiliates — have zeroed in on efforts by governments around the world to curb tobacco use.

“It was the right thing to do for the health and well-being of our customers,” CVS said in a statement announcing it had left the group, adding the company’s “purpose is to help people on their path to better health, and we fundamentally believe tobacco use is in direct conflict with this purpose.”

CVS made a landmark move last year when it decided to remove cigarettes and other tobacco products from all of its drug stores by September 4, 2014.

The company gave $750,000 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year at the same time the chamber lobbied against anti-smoking laws in Uruguay, Moldova and New Zealand.

According to documents obtained by the Times, the chamber targeted laws in those countries that would curtail advertising, ban certain products and restrict smoking in public places.

A Chamber of Commerce spokesperson said the allegations were “a concerted misinformation campaign about the U.S. Chamber’s position on smoking.”

“To be clear, the Chamber does not support smoking and wants people to quit,” a chamber spokesperson said in a statement. “At the same time, we support protecting the intellectual property and trademarks of all legal products in all industries and oppose singling out certain industries for discriminatory treatment.”

Beginning June 1, anyone looking to purchase tobacco products in San Francisco must be at least 21 — not 18, the legal age in the majority of the country.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the measure on Tuesday, according to CNN affiliate KPIX. With this new legislation, San Francisco joins Boston, New York and more than 100 other U.S. cities in raising the minimum age to buy cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other tobacco products. On January 1, Hawaii became the first U.S. state to raise its smoking age to 21.

Why is this so important?

From a health perspective, teenagers — especially between ages 15 and 17 — are most vulnerable to addiction, at a time when their brains are still developing, according to a report released last year by the Institute of Medicine. Even though most middle school and high school students in the United States have never used tobacco themselves, 48% of them report being exposed to secondhand smoke, according to a recent study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, among others, strongly recommends increasing the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21 nationwide. Doing so would result in nearly 250,000 fewer premature deaths and 50,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer among people born between 2000 and 2019, according to the Institute of Medicine report.

It would also mean no high school students would be old enough to buy tobacco, said Dr. Karen Wilson, an associate professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Colorado. “Many children under 18 get tobacco from those over 18 at their school,” she said.

Wilson said there is some evidence that exposure to nicotine (either directly or via secondhand smoke) primes their brains and makes them more likely to be addicted to nicotine in the future.

“Tobacco (is) arguably the most addictive substance on the planet, which has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, in any way, shape or form,” said CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “No matter what your age, smoking is one of the single worst things you can do to your body.”

The best thing you can for your health: Quit — and you don’t have to wait years to see the benefits.

Just 20 minutes after smoking your last cigarette, your heart rate and blood pressure begin to drop. In 24 hours, your risk of heart disease actually goes down. Two weeks later, your lung function has improved and you start to feel better. After five years, your risk of cancer declines. In fact, at 20 years, according to some studies, your overall risk is comparable to that of a nonsmoker.

Find tools and tips to help you kick the habit at SmokeFree.gov.

Just the thought of quitting cold turkey is probably enough to make any smoker uneasy. But a new study adds support to the notion that people who give up cigarettes all at once are more likely to be successful than those who wean themselves off gradually.

Researchers looked at nearly 700 long-term heavy smokers in England who wanted to kick the habit. They instructed half of the participants to quit abruptly — that is, pick a quit day when they would give up smoking entirely. The other half were told to scale back their cigarettes gradually for two weeks leading up to their quit day.

But even the abrupt-quit group was not exactly going it alone. The researchers gave them nicotine patches to use for two weeks before their quit day. During this period, the gradual group also got patches, as well as gum, lozenges and other types of short-acting nicotine replacement therapy to help them as they cut back. After the quit day, both groups got patches and short-acting therapy, in addition to counseling.

The researchers found that 49% of the participants in the abrupt-quit group were not smoking by one month after their quit day, compared with 39.2% in the gradual-quit group. By six months, success rates had dropped, but the difference between the groups was still there: 22% of the abrupt quit group was not smoking, compared with 15.5% of the gradual-quit group.

Even though the more cold turkey method came out on top, the quit rates for both methods were still “quite good,” said Nicola Lindson-Hawley, a postdoctoral researcher at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford in England. Lindson-Hawley is the lead author of the study, which was published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

“Health care workers should offer abrupt quitting first, but if that is not an option, gradual quitting can be a second-line approach,” Lindson-Hawley said. “We understand that people might be dead set against quitting abruptly so if the only way they would consider quitting is gradually then the results of this trial suggest it shouldn’t be ruled out.”

Guidelines on smoking cessation generally urge smokers to quit abruptly. Although some studies have seen no difference between the methods, others suggest that going cold turkey could yield higher success rates.

The high success rates in the current study for both groups is in line with the level of abstinence in the general population achieved through the Stop Smoking Service in the UK, which offers social support and nicotine replacement therapy, Lindson-Hawley said.

But rates are much lower when people people try to go it alone, Lindson-Hawley said. Only a small number of people get help to quit smoking, and a small number of people in the general population — about 5% to 7% — manage to remain smoke-free a year after quitting.

“There is really good evidence for nicotine replacement therapy like patches and gum, that are also very safe, and also Chantix (varenicline)” to help people quit smoking, Lindson-Hawley said.

In addition to the method of quitting, a person’s attitude about quitting may help determine whether he or she will be successful. The current study found that participants who preferred trying to quit abruptly before the study started — suggesting they were especially motivated to quit — were also more likely to be kick the habit.

In the abrupt quit group, rates of abstinence at four weeks were 58% among participants who had wanted to quit cold turkey, but only 42% among those who had preferred quitting gradually. In the gradual quit group, success rates at four weeks were 45.8% and 34.6% among those who had wanted to quit cold turkey or gradually, respectively.

“There are two things that are important in quitting. One is confidence, belief in your ability to be successful. … And the second is desire, the commitment to do it,” said Michael P. Eriksen, dean of the Georgia State University School of Public Health, who was not involved in the current study.

The study did not detect a difference in the confidence levels between the two groups.

“One of the implications [of this study] is we need to really get people to understand that quitting cold turkey is more effective, it kind of gets it over with,” Eriksen said.

For her part, Lindson-Hawley suspects that quitting gradually might leave people out in the cold by prolonging cravings and withdrawal symptoms.

“We hypothesize that you get it all out of the way in one go [by quitting abruptly]. In the gradual group, because they were put through it in a gradual way, they lost the motivation,” Lindson-Hawley said. In support of this possibility, the study found that fewer participants in the gradual quit group managed to actually quit on their predetermined quit day, as compared with the abrupt quit group.

“Rather than discouraging people from quitting at all, [the findings] will encourage them to quit abruptly, to go cold turkey and line up whatever support you need,” which can include nicotine replacement therapy, setting up counseling or locating quit lines you can call, Eriksen said.

“I used to smoke and stopped cold turkey and never touched a cigarette since and it’s been over 40 years,” Eriksen said. “To me it was really a matter of doing it and being fed up, but also liking smoking and knowing I couldn’t stop gradually.”