Goal Area 1: Preventing New Commercial Tobacco Use
The SUTPP and the CDC share the goal of reducing the health burdens of commercial tobacco use by preventing new commercial tobacco use (CDC, 2014b). A success related to this goal was raising the legal age of purchase from 18 (or 19 in some areas) to 21 (see https://tobacco21.org/). Federal law implemented this change in 2019 (FDA, 2021), and Wyoming law followed in 2020 (Wyo. Stat. § 14-3-305). Broad surveys, such as the Adult Tobacco Survey, with few young adults in the sample are not strong methods for showing short-term effects of Tobacco 21, though patterns in the data may change over time.
A key limitation of this section’s findings is that many survey questions ask about events (such as when someone first smoked a whole cigarette) that happened years before data collection. Responses to such questions are especially subject to memory errors. However, precise recall is not critical to the conclusions in this report.
Age of Smoking a Whole Cigarette for the First Time
The age of first smoking a whole cigarette is related to long-term smoking habits. Those who start smoking at an early age are more likely to smoke as adults (CDC, 2014b).
In 2023, almost all (90%) adults who had ever smoked an entire cigarette smoked their first one before the age of 21 (Figure 13). Moreover, the vast majority of them smoked their first cigarette before they were 18, with an average age of 16. This pattern has remained consistent since similar questions were first asked in 2010.
Conclusion
The vast majority of adults who have ever smoked an entire cigarette first smoked when they were under the legal minimum age of 21, especially under the age of 18. Adult Tobacco Survey data are consistent with other research findings that the earlier someone starts smoking, the more likely they are to continue smoking (Dierker et al., 2012; Sharapova et al., 2020). Wyoming may benefit from continued commercial tobacco prevention efforts focusing on youth, though Adult Tobacco Survey data may not show results until years after success with youth happens.
