AUGUSTA (AP) – Smoking rates among Maine youth are continuing to decline, state officials said Tuesday.

About 16 percent of all high school students smoke, a drop from 39 percent in 1997, Gov. John Baldacci said at a press conference. During the same period, the smoking rate for middle school students fell from 21 percent to 7 percent.

“In 1997, Maine had the tragic distinction of having one of the highest youth smoking rates in the nation,” Baldacci said. “In eight years Maine has completely turned those numbers around, with an overall drop in youth smoking of over 60 percent.”

The decline in smoking rates will cut down on future health care costs, said Trish Riley, director of the Office of Health Policy and Finance.

“The youth of today whose lives are saved because of these efforts would have incurred over $400 million in additional health care costs if they had been smokers,” she said.

Cigarette consumption among Maine adults is also falling, with a 30 percent decline in the past eight years, according to Dr. Dora Anne Mills, the state’s public health director.

About 21 percent of Maine adults smoke, down from 27 percent in 1990, she said.

The state still faces a number of obstacles in its continuing effort to reduce smoking among Mainers. About a third of young adults in Maine are smokers,

Mills said, and the tobacco industry continues to spend large amounts of money to market their products.

“Here in Maine, they are spending an estimated $74 million annually on marketing, with a focus on recruiting new smokers,” Mills said.

Officials said strategies to reduce smoking rates include education, school prevention efforts, creating smoke-free public places, enforcing laws restricting tobacco sales to minors, and raising the price of cigarettes.

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