NYC's smoking rate plummeted to 13.9 percent in 2014—the lowest on record, the Health Department reports.
Despite aggressive anti-smoking measures enacted by former Mayor Bloomberg, who spent the bulk of his tenure all but ripping cigarettes from the mouths of constituents with his manicured hands, the new numbers are actually a reversal from recent years. In 2013, more than a million residents smoked—that's 16.1 percent of the city's population, the highest since 2007.
The Department of Health attributes the lower numbers to a decade's worth of concerted effort. "Trends often bump around," Sonia Angell, deputy commissioner for prevention and primary care, told Capital. "We do expect this is a real decrease and it does reflect the efforts over time."
Numbers overall may have gone down, but the story varies wildly by borough: Smokers represent less than 13 percent of the population in Queens and Manhattan, but more than 16 percent on Staten Island and in the Bronx. Smoking rates are also highly gendered; 18 percent are men while only 10 percent are women.
The de Blasio administration says it has budgeted $7.3 million for anti-smoking campaigns this year, a slight increase from the $7.2 million spent last year. Past efforts have included peppering cigarette buyers with blown up images of blackened lungs, but the real deterrence is probably more practical—a pack will set you back $14 these days.
