We're not sure if the University of Kentucky, deep in the heart of tobacco country and home to a tobacco research center, intentionally chose today's Great American Smokeout to announce its ban of all smoking on campus, but there you have it.

Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States, with cigarette smoking accounting for about 443,000 premature deaths, according to American Cancer Society, which sponsors the Great American Smokeout event.

Although the rate of American smokers has declined in the past decade, it has virtually stalled in the past few years and actually increased slightly in 2008, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data cited by The New York Times.

Here's an excerpt:

"It's too soon to say whether we're going in the wrong direction or not, but we're not making the progress we could and should," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C., adding that progress would be made if more states took steps like imposing public smoking bans and providing smoking cessation services. (Dr. Frieden led such a campaign when he was the health commissioner in New York City.)

Dr. Frieden said higher federal tobacco taxes adopted this year might also prod smokers to quit.

Smoking rates still exceed the national goal set by the government public health initiative Healthy People 2010, which aims to reduce smoking rates to less than 12 percent.

How good of a job has the media done in covering the impact of smoking on health, regulations on tobacco products and changes in tobacco taxes? And how much do you think the economic downturn contributed to the slight increase in the smoking rate in 2008?

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