Study: Nearly 1 in 5 Maine Residents Are Smokers

Whether you want to admit it or not, almost everyone has a handful of bad habits. Some of those habits and vices can be worse than others. But one thing most people can agree on is that those bad habits are often difficult to break away from.

One bad habit that has been plaguing the health of Americans for nearly a century is smoking. Specifically, cigarette smoking. Its rise in popularity began in the 1920s, and despite health warnings, ad campaigns, and tax increases, more than one in 10 adults in the U.S. were smokers as of 2021.

Some states have it worse than others. According to MSN, one of those states is Maine, where nearly one in five adults in the state are smokers. Maine is the heaviest smoking state in the entire northeast. New Hampshire isn't far behind, with 15% of its adult residents as smokers.

But it could always be worse. More than one out of every four adult residents of West Virginia are smokers. Smoking has been a decades-long drag on the health of that state, leading to the lowest life expectancy from birth in the entire country.

Perhaps just as surprising as the amount of smokers that are in West Virginia is how few smokers there are in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is New England's healthiest state when it comes to non-smoking. Data shows that only about one out of every 10 adult residents in Massachusetts are smokers.

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All of the data compiled doesn't include underage residents who are smokers, which sadly may increase the percentages in Maine slightly.