Much like its placement in the country, Wisconsin falls somewhere in the middle for adult smoking rates among the 50 states.

A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday reported approximately 22.1 percent of Wisconsin adults smoke — the exact rate of adults in the United States as a whole.

When ranked among the other states and Washington, D.C., Wisconsin has the 24th highest smoking rate. The rankings are not completely accurate when the margin of error is taken into account, CDC spokesperson Joel London said.

He said ranking should not be taken too seriously since the margins of error often make different states' numbers overlap.

"It would be safest to say that Wisconsin is right in the middle," London said.

Regardless of how Wisconsin compares to other states in the nation, work needs to be done to help decrease the number of smokers at home, according to Maureen Busalacchi, executive director of Smoke Free Wisconsin.

Busalacchi said the state has implemented tobacco control programs and Smoke Free Wisconsin has proposed an 85-cent tax increase on tobacco in the state.

"We estimate that almost 40,000 adult smokers would quit if the tobacco tax is raised with an 85-cent increase," Busalacchi said. "It's huge. It has a very big impact."

While the smoking rate is still not as low as she would like it to be, Busalacchi said Smoke Free Wisconsin has witnessed some success, with the smoking rate of Wisconsin adults dropping 2 percent between 2001 and 2003.

Another area of improvement she cited was a 50 percent drop in smoking among school-age children over the past three years.

"The rates are going down but not fast enough when we still have a lot of kids who are smoking," she said.

Keeping kids from smoking is essential to reaching Surgeon General Richard Carmona's goal of a 12 percent national smoking rate by 2010, said Craig Stevens, spokesperson for the Surgeon General.

"Education is still the key with decreasing smoking," he said. "That's where we've seen the best smoking drops; keep kids from starting."

Although the median of smoking rates in the 50 states and Washington, D.C., is 22.1 percent, Stevens is hopeful the national goal of 12 percent will be achieved by 2010.

"We're hopeful that the rates of smoking will continue to drop as the science comes forward," Stevens said. "Smoking is almost vilified in some societies."

Busalacchi said the CDC recommends Wisconsin spend $30 to $80 million on tobacco prevention and cessation programs to help reach the national goal. She said the state needs to increase its spending to counter spending by the tobacco industry.

"The governor should propose it in his budget, and the legislature should endorse it," she said.

Stevens maintains that preventing people from smoking in the first place is the most important part of reaching a 12 percent nationwide smoking rate. He said the Surgeon General will continue to make it harder for people to smoke, but there is only so much that can be done by the government and health organizations to lower the smoking rate of the country.

"At the end of the day, it comes down to sheer will of the smoker," Stevens said. "It's much harder to quit than never to start."