Tobacco & Vaping 101: Kansas

Lawmakers are often bombarded with misinformation on the products used by adults in their state. This annual analysis provides up-to-date data on the adults who use cigarettes and e-cigarette products in Kansas. This information aslo includes data on youth use, impacts of e-cigarettes and analyses of existing tobacco monies.

Key Points: 

• In 2021, 15.6 percent of adults were currently smoking in Kansas. This is a six percent decrease from 2020.
• In 2021 (among all Kansas adults), nine percent of 18- to 24-year-olds, 21.3 percent of 25–44-year-olds, 17.2 percent of 45–64-year-olds, and 9.1 percent of adults aged 65 years or older were currently smoking combustible cigarettes.
• Among all adults earning $25,000 or less in 2021, 25.5 percent were currently smoking compared to only 8.5 percent of adults earning $50,000 or more.
• Among all smoking adults in 2021 in Kansas, 72.8 percent were White, 11.1 percent were Hispanic, 8.3 percent were Black, 3.8 percent were American Indian/Alaska Native, 2.3 percent were Multiracial, non-Hispanic, 1.1 percent were Asian and less than one percent identified as “Other.”
• Cigarette excise taxes in Kansas disproportionately impact low-income persons and lower educated adults, while failing to significantly reduce smoking rates among that class.
• The percentage of Kansas adults earning $25,000 or less that were smoking increased by 6.1 percent between 2015 and 2021, while the percentage of adults earning $50,000 or more that were smoking decreased by 27.6 percent during the same period.
• Among Kansans who did not graduate high school, smoking rates increased by 17.4 percent, yet rates among adults with a college degree, rates decreased by 19.2 percent.
• In 2021, 6.6 percent of adults reported past-month e-cigarette use, which was a 43.5 percent increase from 2017.
• Youth vaping seems to have peaked in 2019, when 20 percent of youth reported current e-cigarette use. Between 2019 and 2022, current e-cigarette use declined by 53 percent.
• Traditional tobacco use among youth is at record lows. In 2022, only 1.9 percent of U.S. youth reported current cigar use, 1.6 percent reported current combustible cigarette use and 1.3 percent reported using smokeless tobacco products.
• The introduction of e-cigarettes has not led to increases in cigarette smoking, but rather, correlates with significant declines in smoking rates among young adults.
• Between 2007 and 2018, smoking rates among Kansas adults aged 18 to 24 years old declined by 35.3 percent. Since 2018, young adult smoking rates have decreased another 36.2 percent, with average annual declines of 13.7 percent.
• Kansas woefully underfunds programs to prevent youth use of tobacco and/or vapor products and to help adults quit smoking, while simultaneously receiving millions of dollars from the pockets of the adults who smoke. In 2021, for every $1 the state received in tobacco monies, it spent less than $0.01 on tobacco control efforts.