Higher cigarette taxes, smokefree laws and educational campaigns have helped cut the smoking rate in New York City from 21.6 percent in 2002 to 17.5 percent in 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

Reuters reported June 21 that the CDC credited the city's aggressive antismoking policies for the decline, including a 2005 program that was effective in lowering smoking rates among men and Hispanics.

"These findings confirm the importance of comprehensive tobacco-control programs and suggest that this intensive, broad-based media campaign has reduced smoking prevalence among certain groups," the CDC said.

Researchers estimated that there were 240,000 fewer smokers in the city in 2006 than in 2002, and that the stop-smoking campaigns could save 80,000 or more lives.

The study appears in the June 22, 2007 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.