Tobacco Control News
- Smoking Cessation Coverage Now Available for All Medicare Patients
- Lights Out for Light Cigarettes
- A World Without Tobacco
- Most states falling short on tobacco policies
- This Mother’s Day, Help Your Mom Go Smokefree
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What Do These Grades Mean to Me?
This grade tells you how your state’s cigarette taxes compare with those in other states. Higher cigarette taxes are a powerful tool to fight tobacco use. Cigarette taxes encourage current smokers to quit, and they really work to prevent kids from starting to smoke. The larger the increase, the bigger the impact; every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces the amount children smoke by about 7 percent.
This grade tells you how well your state is doing in helping people on Medicaid and state employees quit smoking. Quitting is hard. Smokers usually must try several times before they finally stop. Their chances of quitting greatly increase if they can get the medications and counseling to help them. States need to cover all medications and forms of counseling that are proven to help smokers quit, and they need to make sure all smokers have easy access to them. This is especially important for people who get Medicaid, who smoke at rates 60 percent higher than the general population.
This grade tells you how well your state protects the public from toxic secondhand smoke. Good smokefree laws help protect the public from this deadly pollutant, which can cause lung cancer and heart disease. Good smokefree laws protect workers, who otherwise have to breathe this dangerous smoke every day on their jobs. When the laws go into place, they also encourage smokers to consider quitting.
This grade tells you if your state is providing enough money to fight the tobacco industry and to help smokers quit. States have money that was intended to be spent for this purpose, but too often they spend that money on other things. State tobacco prevention and control programs help stop children from starting to smoke and help smokers quit. These programs run ads to counter tobacco industry messages designed to get kids to start smoking. They also provide community programs that help stop the use of tobacco products. But enough funding must be there for these programs to succeed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends an amount each state should spend. State legislators need to fund these programs at or above that level.
