Addiction in America

[innerSpaceman]

Maybe you can find the studies to reveal the stats ... but in my experience, 96 out of a hundred smokers are addicted to tobacco. I think the number of users pretty much represents the number of addicts.

I could be wrong. This is based just on everybody I've ever known who smokes or smoked cigarettes (teehee, except me).

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Maybe you can find the studies to reveal the stats ... but in my experience, 96 out of a hundred smokers are addicted to tobacco. I think the number of users pretty much represents the number of addicts.

I could be wrong. This is based just on everybody I've ever known who smokes or smoked cigarettes (teehee, except me).

Yeah, I wasn't saying that the number of non-addicted smokers isn't large, just not 100% of the number of people who smoke. But I didn't have any numbers in support, just a feeling that it was a sensible statement (and a minor anality in being annoyed that the list was comparing different units).

So I got some help and tracked down some numbers. Not a deep literature search but it appears that depending on how you define "addiction indicators" about 50% of casual smokers (less than six cigarettes a day) show signs of addiction and somewhere between 85% and 95% of non-casual (six or more) smokers show signs of addiction.

Here's one study in particular, a CDC study of women in the United States. It defines a smoker as anybody who has smoked more than 100 cigarettes and at least one in the last 30 days. So, if those numbers, are approximately representative and the original list used the same definitions then of the 74.5 million smokers you'd expect about 60 million to be addicted. Of course, if whatever source that list uses had a more restrictive definition that cuts out the more casual end of the smoking scale then the percentage goes up. A British study gives a 5% non-addiction rate among regular smokers.

Not a hugely important distinction I just like lists to be in the same units of measurement. I'd still guess that technically caffeine addiction is higher in gross numbers. Except in Utah.