Nearly 30% of middle and high school boys and nearly 18% of girls used some form of tobacco last year, the federal government said in a report published Thursday.

Over the last decade, there has been a slow decline in tobacco use among middle and high school students, the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. But when compared with other long-term studies, such as the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the steep rate of decline from 1997 to 2003 has slowed noticeably.

Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States.