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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Illinois State Facts
- Economic Costs Due to Smoking:
- $8,317,453,000
- Adult Prevalence:
- 21.3%
- High School Smoking Rate:
- 19.9%
- Middle School Smoking Rate:
- 8.8%
- Smoking Attributable Deaths:
- 16,600
- Smoking Attributable Lung Cancer Deaths:
- 5,450
- Smoking Attributable Respiratory Disease Deaths:
- 4,009
Adult smoking rate is taken from CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2008 Prevalence Data. High school smoking rate is taken from the 2007 Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System. Middle school smoking rate is taken from the 2006 Youth Tobacco Survey.
Health impact information is taken from the Smoking Attributable Mortality, Morbidity and Economic Costs (SAMMEC) software. Smoking attributable deaths reflect average annual estimates for the period 2000-2004 and are calculated for persons aged 35 years and older. They do not take into account deaths from burns or secondhand smoke. Respiratory diseases include pneumonia, influenza, bronchitis, emphysema and chronic airway obstruction. The estimated economic impact of smoking is based on smoking-attributable health care expenditures in 2004 and the average annual productivity losses for the period 2000-2004.
Illinois
Behind the Scenes
The American Lung Association in Illinois continues to lead statewide clean indoor air and tobacco control efforts. Together with our partners and coalition members we worked to keep tobacco issues as a legislative priority during the 2009 session.During 2009, the American Lung Association in Illinois continued in its leadership role advocating for policies to reduce the impact of tobacco use. During the 2009 legislative session, the Illinois Senate passed a $1.00 per pack cigarette tax increase, but the bill stalled in the Illinois House of Representatives. In the midst of thousands of state layoffs and cutbacks, the Lung Association was successful in maintaining funding for statewide tobacco prevention and cessation efforts while most of the state budget saw at least 50 percent reductions.
On January 1, 2009 Illinois celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Smoke Free Illinois Act, one of the strongest smokefree laws in the country. It requires all workplaces, restaurants, bars, private clubs and casinos/gaming venues to be smokefree. To celebrate the anniversary, a statewide media blitz during January and February 2009 included both television and radio commercials.
Again this year, several attempts to weaken the Smoke Free Illinois Act were defeated. As the economy continues to deteriorate and gambling revenues decline, we expect more and more attempts to exempt casinos from the law. The rulemaking language for the Smoke Free Illinois Act was not adopted during 2008 through the regular process, due to problems between then Governor Blagojevich and the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. Nonetheless, it was later written into legislation that became the very first bill Pat Quinn signed as the new governor of Illinois in January 2009. This clarifying law put any confusion over due process to rest.
The American Lung Association in Illinois led efforts to pass a bill to license tobacco retailers. The Illinois Department of Revenue estimates that cigarette tax evasion by Illinois tobacco retailers costs at least $90 million annually. A bill to license retailers and increase inspections of retail establishments created much friction in the Illinois legislature and had extremely strong opposition. Lack of current inspections allows retailers to sell to minors and to cheaply sell counterfeit or smuggled cigarettes from military bases, Native American reservations, countries or states with lower tax rates.
In 2010, the American Lung Association in Illinois will continue working to overcome great opposition to increasing excise taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products and will pursue efforts that were stalled during the 2009 session to license vendors/retailers to sell tobacco products.
