Number of women smokers decrease in NY.

Perhaps because cigarettes are 8 dollars a pack and you can’t smoke inside and it is COLD outside (from what I hear) the percentage of female smokers has made a sharp decrease in NY.

The data, which is a random telephone survey of 10,000 residents, shows more women are becoming health conscious now. Calling it “bad news” for tobacco companies, city health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said that many companies are also using various marketing gimmicks to attract women smokers.
According to AP reports, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. is using pink packaging and fashion magazine ads to market a new cigarette brand aimed at women called Camel No. 9. However, the vice president for marketing of the Camel brand sees their move as giving women smokers “a choice with products we believe are more appealing than existing products.”
The latest figures from the health department find that the number of women smokers fell from 20 percent in 2002 to 16 percent in 2005 – a period when only one new smoker in four was a woman.

Ugh, tobacco companies are so evil. Via AHN.