The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the 2023 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey results, an annual assessment of various health-related behaviors among U.S. adults. Tobacco control advocates have reason to celebrate: The adult smoking rate has reached record lows, and in some states, young adult smoking rates are nearly nonexistent.According to the BRFSS, only 12.1% of adults across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., smoked in 2023, down from 14% in 2022. This drop represents a decrease from 36.4 million smokers in 2022 to 31.7 million in 2023, a reduction of approximately 4.7 million. The decline among young adults aged 18 to 24 is even more notable: Only 5.6% smoked in 2023, marking a 23.5% decrease from 2022 and a dramatic 76.5% decline over the past decade.Inaction and sporadic enforcement by federal agencies have contributed to widespread misperceptions about products that are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.While tobacco control advocates credit these historic lows to policies like taxes and smoking bans, the rise in e-cigarette use also appears correlated with the reduction in smoking rates. From 2016 to 2023, vaping among young adults rose by 90%, while their smoking rates fell by 63.8%. Interestingly, young adult vaping rates have also started to decline, dropping 23.5% from 20.9% in 2022 to 18.9% in 2023.In some states, such as Utah and New York, young adult smoking rates are exceptionally low, at 2.6% and 3.4%, respectively. Even Oklahoma, which has the highest young adult smoking rate at 9.1%, is still significantly lower than the national adult average of 12.1%.These trends extend to youth smoking and vaping statistics. According to the CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Survey, only 1.6% of U.S. middle and high school students reported current cigarette use in 2023. Youth vaping has also declined significantly, with only 5.9% of U.S. youth vaping this year — a 70.5% drop from 2019, when 20% were vaping. In just five years, America went from one in five youth using e-cigarettes to one in 20.Despite these positive trends, many tobacco control advocates continue to push for strict policies and high taxes, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been slow to process authorizations for newer tobacco harm-reduction products. This has contributed to public misunderstandings about the relative risks of these products compared to traditional cigarettes.Numerous organizations, including the American Lung Association, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and the Truth Initiative, recognize the significant declines in youth vaping but remain concerned about the frequency of use among current users, particularly criticizing flavored tobacco and vapor products.The ALA describes vaping as “a serious public health concern,” while CTFK emphasizes that youth e-cigarette use “remains a serious public health problem” and calls for an end to this “crisis” by urging federal agencies like the FDA and the U.S. Department of Justice to intensify their efforts to eliminate all illegal e-cigarettes from the market. Similarly, the Truth Initiative asserts that “youth nicotine addiction remains a serious public health concern.”All these groups criticize flavored products, despite adults using these flavors in innovative tobacco harm-reduction products to remain smoke-free. These groups also focus their efforts on newer oral nicotine pouches, even though less than 2% of youth report using such products.These groups are not alone. The inaction and sporadic enforcement by federal agencies have contributed to widespread misperceptions about products that are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.Since 2015, the FDA has issued only 56 marketing orders for newer tobacco products introduced in the United States after February 2007. Despite authorizing more than 16,000 other tobacco products since 2012, the FDA has approved marketing for only 34 e-cigarette products. In contrast, in 2023, the agency issued more than 660 orders for combustible cigarettes, despite declining smoking rates among American adults. This disparity likely contributes to public confusion about the relative health benefits of e-cigarettes.Policymakers and tobacco control groups should recognize and celebrate the historic reductions in cigarette use among both adults and youth. This is a significant public health achievement that may be driven by the availability of tobacco harm-reduction products, such as e-cigarettes and oral nicotine pouches.Instead of resisting these market trends and products that have been associated with significant declines in smoking rates, these groups should advocate enhanced access to these alternatives to help end the use of combustible cigarettes once and for all.

Donald Trump’s landslide victory has inevitably resulted in a debate surrounding gender — and Jason Whitlock of “Fearless” is calling it what it really is. “It’s a battle of the sexes. There are beta men who have jumped on the other side, but this has all been a program, and they program little kids. That’s why you see all these young people, they’ve been so immersed in this brainwashing process,” Whitlock explains. “Kids' minds are impressionable, and why all these young people are melting down, they’ve been fed a steady diet of Disney movies, of Disney princesses, a steady diet indoctrinating them into ‘you don’t need a man,’” he continues. While older Disney films like “Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty” required that a man come and save the princesses, the films that have followed, like “Mulan,” show the woman saving herself. “They save themselves now, the men are evil and incompetent, and they’re generally stories about the princess saving herself, saving humanity, start sending little kids that message over and over and over, ‘You don’t need a man, you can save yourself,’” Whitlock explains. But as Whitlock notes, it’s not just the kid’s movies. Movies like “The Woman King” and “Wakanda,” which feature characters like the female Black Panther, have only added fuel to the gender war fire. “And you wonder why these black women are delusional,” Whitlock says. “The government came in and offered these black women a check, a welfare check, and now they got entertainment on a 24/7 loop that tells these black women, 'Wakanda forever,' and you can save the planet and over in Africa a bunch of women warriors wiped out the colonizers.” “Donald Trump represents toxic masculinity, and there’s a group of women and their emasculated allies who think, ‘Oh, the world would be so much better if we just had less masculinity and more femininity,’” he adds. Want more from Jason Whitlock?To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Twelve years ago, my mother had a manic breakdown. She was found in Molokai, Hawaii, after disappearing for several days. The fugue state — in which she turned into a nightmare version of herself, eyes afire, flagellating her loved ones with a stream of deranged insults and delusions — lasted about six months until someone finally got her on lithium. As she returned to herself, I pressured her to get a dog. She lived alone, so it would help her get a grip on reality. She said she liked whippets, so I found a local breeder. I wanted to name him Knut after Knut Hamsun, but she decided on Eliot after T.S. I lost many jobs, many friends, many family members, all of whom called me problematic crazy fringe incel bigot weirdo resentful loser failure. But I just couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t not see the lie. When the fugue began, I was finishing law school. When it ended, I’d taken the bar and moved to Los Angeles. I’d already experienced my parents’ terrible divorce as an only child at 17, but this year, 27, was the toughest and most isolating of my life. The safety net had ripped open, and I’d fallen through. Everything was most definitely not going to be okay. After hitting the ground and dusting yourself off, making sure you aren’t dead, there is a sense of relief. “That happened.” There on the ground, you see the world as most people on earth do, all victims of abandonment or neglect or abuse or poverty or other societal failure, just not the upper middle-class American suburban milieu I’d been comfortably incubated within. And when you hit the earth, you suddenly want to tell the truth. You don’t want to “win” any more. You want to help other people figure this thing out. I was always edgy, but a good boy politically. In fact, I thought if myself as edgy for a good cause, that cause being “equality.” I’d dutifully campaigned for Obama, and my diverse group of friends had tearfully celebrated when he won in 2008. But now it was 2012, and I worked for a gay Hollywood agent with six other young men, all of whom were gay. The time came to vote for Obama again, but this time, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt phony, a little numb spot where my righteousness had once curled. What the hell did this guy know about anything? He certainly wasn’t talking to me. I told my co-workers this, and they were deeply offended. Didn’t I understand their rights were at stake? I already didn’t fit in, but this made it terminal. I was out within three months. And thus began a decade of professional, personal, and familial torment as I slowly came out of the closet as a political bad boy, just as much to myself as to the world. I was, and still am, a liberal — it’s not possible to completely erase my deracinated bohemian upbringing. But it became increasingly clear to me that the good guys were in fact a mask covering a barely perceptible leviathan pulsing under the surface, rapidly reaching its tentacles across the earth. As Eliot grew and my mother healed, I lost many jobs, many friends, many family members, all of whom called me problematic crazy fringe incel bigot weirdo resentful loser failure. But I just couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t not see the lie. In L.A., I became a lone Trump supporter. I had zero MAGA friends, zero contacts to celebrate with when he won, maybe only one or two even in 2020 to lament the loss. On Tuesday, I celebrated with 100 friends, all culture kids and almost all recent converts who, like me, just couldn’t bring themselves to lie any more. The thing we share in common? A breaking. Some loss, failure, death — the cozy cloak of a bourgeois upbringing ripped off, however fleetingly. All men used to be broken by war. Now far fewer are. But everyone in that room had gotten a glimpse. Tuesday: a decade of pain vindicated in a single night. Wednesday morning after the all-nighter, I drove down to San Diego to put Eliot to sleep. He had a tennis ball-sized sarcoma dangling off his arm and typical whippet heart issues. It was time. Two guys came to the house and did it — it took 20 minutes. A decade transcended in a few quiet moments. Mom is doing better now, but she still hates my politics. This essay originally appeared on the Carousel.

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