- Number of Tasmanian adults who smoke: 25.4 per cent, or 86,400.

- Those who smoke daily: 21.5 per cent (nation's highest).

- Tasmanian women who smoke during pregnancy: 27.6 per cent (11.8 per cent of those smoke more than 10 a day).

- 50 per cent of the Tasmanian Aboriginal population smoke.

TASMANIANS are the nation's heaviest smokers - smoking at a rate close to twice the national average.

Tasmanian men aged 18 to 34 smoke most - 39.6 per cent of men in the age group smoke daily.

At 32.6 per cent, young women aren't far behind when it comes to lighting up.

Nearly 22 per cent of Australians smoke daily.

In Tasmania, the rates soared by 10 per cent during the three years to 2004, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.

Yesterday Launceston lung specialist Jim Markos was perplexed by the rising number of smokers in Tasmania.

He welcomed new packaging laws and increases in the cost of a packet of cigarettes announced by the Federal Government yesterday.

Dr Markos said the State Government had worked hard to stop Tasmanians smoking with anti- smoking legislation.

Quit Tasmania program manager Glenn Mitchell said that with bans on smoking in cars with children and bans on smoking in the workplace, Tasmania was acknowledged as an anti-smokes leader.

So why are so many young Tasmanians starting to smoke?

Dr Markos says the calming high that nicotine gave anxious people was unique among legal drugs.

Anxious people, he said, got calm without being sedated; the nicotine kept them productive.

"It's very hard to match any other legal substance that gives you the high and keeps you calm," Dr Markos said.

Tasmania's cold climate and low incomes were also contributors, he said.

A lot of the state's poor went unseen and were desperate.

They spent money on smokes instead of necessities, he said.

Dr Markos wants to see the number of Australians smoking reduced to 10 per cent of the population.

"When it's down to 10 per cent, that's when the Government could ban them completely," he said.

While older smokers were dying and leaving the market, the trick was to stop young people starting and taking their place, he said.

Sports heroes and other leaders had to lead the way in indicating that smoking was uncool and not glamorous, he said.