By Bob Weaver
Calhoun and all the regional counties, excepting Wirt, have among the highest rates of smoking nicotine in West Virginia at 30-35% of the adult population, according to the Health Statistics Center.
The state has among the highest rates of smoking and nicotine use in the USA.
Another county-by-county study of adult smoking says up to 43% of Calhoun adults smoke, with a state-wide average at 26%, according to to rankings from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Those studies do not factor the wide-spread use of smokeless tobacco, prevalent in rural areas.
The state's smokeless-tobacco use rate among adult males is 12 percent, and about 7 percent of the population is considered "dual-use" tobacco users, meaning they smoke and use smokeless tobacco, according to the recent study.
The national smoking rate declined from 20 percent to 12.3 percent of the population between 1995 and 2010. West Virginia's smoking rate was 23 percent in 2010.
A study, the "Comprehensive Tobacco Control Policies in West Virginia â Going from Intersection to Integration," appeared in the July-August issue of the West Virginia Medical Journal.
The study, which compared West Virginia and neighboring states, found that the Mountain State's adult smoking rate has not declined significantly in nearly two decades, despite a marked decline in surrounding states and across the nation.
READ: August 17, 2014: Health report: W.Va.'s anti-smoking policies must be stricter/
By Lydia Nuzum, Charleston Gazette Staff Writer
Most of the millions of dollars being received by the State of West Virginia in the major USA tobacco injury settlement were shifted to fill budget loopholes for other needs, away from prevention or cessation of tobacco risk behaviors.
A few years ago, No Child Left Behind required school systems to do student polled surveys regarding their risky behaviors. In Calhoun, the nationally-used PRIDE survey was conducted.
School systems have often been a target, shifting blame to them for not being able to control risky behaviors, although PRIDE was clear that the behaviors originate in families.
READ: CALHOUN PRIDE SURVEY SAYS ILLICIT DRUG USE MOSTLY OFF-CAMPUS
READ: CALHOUN STUDENTS EXHIBIT RISKY BEHAVIORS, SAYS PRIDE SURVEY - Disturbing Statistics | 
