Chapter 9 
Consumer/Smoker Perceptions of Federal 
Trade Commission Tar Ratings 
Joel B. Cohen 
INTRODUCTION A telephone survey among a national probability sample of 
1,005 adults (502 men and 503 women) 18 years of age and older was 
conducted between November 17 and 20, 1994. Data were weighted by 
age, sex, geographic region, and race so that each respondent was assigned 
a single weight based on the relationship between the actual population 
proportions of the listed characteristics and the comparable sample 
proportions. 
The author's estimate of every-day smoking (23 percent) matches current 
assessments of adult U.S. smoking prevalence (22 percent). When every-day 
and some-days smokers were combined, the current smoking percentage 
(28.7 percent) was slightly higher than the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC) (1994) comparable estimate of 26.5 percent for 1992. This 
sample reported somewhat higher current smoking percentages for females 
(29 percent) than did the 1992 CDC surveys (24.6 percent). Total smoking 
reported by whites (29 percent) was slightly higher than in the 1992 CDC 
surveys (27.2 percent), whereas total smoking reported by blacks in this 
sample (27 percent) was virtually identical (27.8 percent). A high percentage 
of those who report having attended but not graduated from college were 
some-days smokers. When added to every-day smokers, this total was 
substantially higher (36 percent) than that reported in the CDC surveys 
(24 percent) and was closer to the CDC estimate for high school graduates 
(31 percent). College graduates in this sample were also somewhat more 
likely to smoke (19 percent compared with 15.5 percent reported in CDC 
surveys). Age breakdowns were not entirely comparable among the surveys, 
but the author's sample reported a higher incidence of smoking among 
18- to 24-year-olds (32 percent compared with 26.4 percent). 
TAR LEVEL OF Table 1 reports the tar levels of cigarettes last smoked, determined by 
CIGARETTES asking the brand, size, and other characteristics of the cigarette. These 
answers were compared with actual Federal Trade Commission (FTC) tar 
ratings. In 15 percent of the cases, respondents could not provide sufficiently 
detailed product information to make this comparison ("Cannot Determine" 
respondents). These respondents were likely to come disproportionately from 
lower tar categories. A four-category designation of tar levels was selected. 
It allowed for somewhat greater differentiation among lower tar users, had 
an equal number of rating scale points in each of the low-tar categories, and 
was consistent with a recently proposed four-category nicotine and tar rating 
system. Unweighted cell sizes for the five tar categories (including "Cannot 
Determine") shown in Table 1 were small: 28, 75, 70, 116, and 48 for those 
smoking cigarettes in the past 2 to 3 years. 
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