Fewer teens lighting up due to absence of cartoon camels

A new federal study shows that fewer teenagers are smoking these days.

This was the eighth consecutive year that smoking rates among surveyed teens dropped, a turnaround that began in 1996 among students in grades eight and 10 and a year later among 12th-graders.

Researchers credited higher cigarette prices, tighter marketing practices, anti-smoking ads and withdrawal of the Joe Camel logo among the reasons smoking has fallen out of favor with more teens.

Because, you know, kids just won't be interested in something unless there's an anthropomorphized dromedary associated with it.