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• Number of New York City smokers drops after ban, tax increase 

The number of adult smokers in New York dropped by 188,000 in the years after the city raised cigarette taxes and banned people from lighting up in bars and restaurants, health officials said Thursday.

An annual community survey by the health department found that 18.4 percent of adult New Yorkers were smokers in 2004, down from 19.2 percent the year before and 21.6 percent in 2002. . . .

Women between the ages of 18 and 24 saw the largest decline in smoking rates, with 40.5 percent fewer smokers than in 2002, according to the survey.

The rate changed the least for blacks, who reported 1.9 percent fewer smokers, and Asians, who reported a 5.2 percent drop, the health department said.

Before the implementation of the smoking ban in the spring of 2003 and the adoption of a $1.50 per pack tax in 2002, smoking rates in the city had remained substantially unchanged for a decade. The old cigarette tax was 8 cents per pack.

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