MINNEAPOLIS, November 18, 2008—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a report on the national effort to reduce smoking to no more than 12 percent of the population by 2010.  Although progress is occurring, it's not happening swiftly enough to meet the 2010 goal.

There are an estimated 43.4 million smokers in the U.S. population—just under 20 percent of the whole.  Fewer than 1 percent of us quit in the last year. To meet the goal, 11 percent would have to quit in the next year, and that is unlikely to happen.

The CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health has devised a plan by which five million people in five years would quit smoking if every state were to implement the plan by the end of this year. The CDC estimates the tobacco-related premature death toll would drop by hundreds of thousands every year if its plan became nationwide.

A similar effort, the Great American Smokeout, to be celebrated for the 32nd time on Thursday, November 20, calls on smokers everywhere to not smoke at all for just the one day.

The smokeout traditionally takes place on the third Thursday in November. The concept dates from the early '70s when Lynn Smith, publisher of the Monticello Times of Minnesota, announced the first observance and called it "D Day."

The idea caught on in state after state until 1977, it went nationwide under the sponsorship of the American Cancer Society. If past smokeouts are any indication, as many as one-third of the nation's smokers skip smoking for a day.