Colorado Ranks Among Top 10 in Lowest Percentage of Smokers

It doesn't seem that long ago that part of going out to the bars in Fort Collins included coming home smelling like cigarette smoke, whether or not you actually smoked one. I remember there was a gas station in Campus West that sold cigarette singles, you could buy one cigarette. That was about twenty years ago and boy, have things changed.

In 2006 the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act was passed, which prohibited smoking indoors. This made it a lot more inconvenient to light up if you were playing pool or just got done dancing on the bar at Zydecos. Anyone? In 2009, the City of Fort Collins banned smoking in parks, on trails, and in natural areas.

Colorado is among the top 10 in the lowest percentage of smokers today. World No Tobacco Day just happened at the end of May and BetColorado dove into some statistics to see what smoking habits in the United States look like.

The data used in these rankings came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2021 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. BetColorado.com ranked the states based on its percentage of adults who reported "smoking at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime and currently smoke daily or some days."

The CDC states "current smoking has declined from 20.9% (nearly 21 of every 100 adults) in 2005 to 11.5% (nearly 12 of every 100 adults) in 2021."

Utah, California, and Hawaii were in the top three for low smoking. Colorado tied for 9th, with 12% of its adult population reporting as heavy smokers. The worst states were Arkansas and West Virginia. The full list of state rankings is here.

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