BEIJING, Nov. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The percent of Americans who smoke has remained the same since 2004, federal researchers reported Thursday, prompting a call for the government to spend more money to persuade people to kick the habit.

    More than 45 million Americans smoked in 2006, or 20.8 percent of the population, 80 percent of them daily smokers, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

    The CDC said the numbers have not changed since 2004, which suggests that smoking prevention efforts have "stalled."

    "It is completely commensurate with the stall in resources that been going into tobacco control," Dr. Matt McKenna, who directs CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, said in a telephone interview.

    The CDC researchers used the National Health Interview Survey of more than 24,000 U.S. adults to find out how many people smoke.

    Nearly 24 percent of men and 18 percent of women smoked. Numbers ranged from more than 50 percent of men with a high school equivalency diploma, to 4.6 percent of Asian women. More educated people were less likely to smoke, with 6.6 percent of those with graduate degrees being smokers.

    McKenna said state and federal officials are not doing everything they can to help counter the efforts of tobacco companies.

    While the CDC recommends spending 1.80 U.S. dollars per person a year in Oregon, for instance, to encourage quitting, the tobacco industry spends 3.50 dollars per person on marketing, he said.

"The overall CDC recommendations nationally for state programs to fund tobacco control is about 3.7 billion dollars. Currently about half a billion dollars is being spent," he said.

    (Agencies)