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National News
State anti-smoking efforts are losing funding and losing steam, says a new report card from the American Lung Association. About 20 percent of adults still smoke and smoking is the biggest preventable cause of death, killing about 443,000 Americans each year.
Forty-three states and the District of Columbia earned grades of “F” for funding smoking-prevention programs at less than half the levels the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged in a 2007 report, the lung group said. Smoking costs the U.S. economy almost $193 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity, said Charles Connor, the association’s president and chief executive officer.
U.S. states’ anti-tobacco efforts in 2011 were “abysmal,” according to the American Lung Association. It said states’ collective spending on anti-smoking programs fell 11 percent to $477 million last year from $534 million in 2010, and only two states raised cigarette taxes, Bloomberg News reported.
The ALA’s report says some states are retreating on programs that reduce childhood smoking. Connor says, “We know that most states aren’t doing everything they should to help smokers quit, and as a result, millions of people won’t get the help they need to stop smoking.
Most states, including Maryland, are not doing enough to protect the public from tobacco or prevent related disease, according to the latest assessment from the American Lung Association due out today. In its 10th annual State of Tobacco Control Report Card, the group gave praise to the Obama administration for offering treatments to federal employees, putting graphic pictures on cigarettes packs and advertising its 1-800-QUIT-NOW line. But the group said the tobacco companies are taking advantage of the states’ lax policies by spending billions to market cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products (Cohn, 1/19).
Regional News
The American Lung Association released its annual report card on how well the nation is doing when it comes to reducing smoking rates, and once again, Massachusetts earned two failing grades for its tobacco prevention and smoking cessation programs. The state earned an “F” for spending only $9.9 million, in state and federal funds, on prevention programs; that’s far less than the $90 million recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s also the same level spent by the state in 2010 and below than the $14 million in funding for 2008.
Ohio’s horrendously low grades for the third year in a row for failing to prevent smoking ought to light a fire under this slacker state. Smoking drives up medical costs for everybody and is one factor behind the state’s rising Medicaid bill. More than 40 percent of Medicaid recipients are smokers, according to the American Lung Association, which calculates that treating patients with smoking-related diseases costs the state about $9 billion annually.
The association’s chief executive, Jeff Seyler, said New York took important steps to expand tobacco-cessation counseling offered to Medicaid recipients and laws to protect more New Yorkers from secondhand smoke. But, he added, the state took several major steps backward. “It’s disappointing that just days before the release of this report giving New York a failing grade for inadequately funding its tobacco control program, the governor proposes further cutting the program by $5 million,” Seyler said.
Raising the price of tobacco has proven to be an effective way to steer people from picking up the habit. And discouraging everyone from using tobacco in any form is always a good idea. Tobacco is linked to an estimated 6,861 deaths in Maryland each year and costs the state an estimated $3.6 billion in health care costs and lost productivity, the American Lung Association reports.
When it came to Indiana, the report summarized the state legislature’s action, or lack thereof, on tobacco issues last year. The state once again failed to pass a comprehensive smokefree workplace ban and slashed funding for the tobacco control program from $9.2 to $8.05 million.
Let’s just say California’s grade from the American Lung Association is nothing to hang on the fridge.
The state earned a D in the American Lung Association’s 10th annual State of Tobacco Control report, and Los Angeles did not fare much better, earning a C for its overall tobacco control.
The American Lung Association this week issued its annual State of Tobacco Control report, which grades states on how well they discourage people from smoking.
No surprise here: Missouri, home to the lowest-in-the-nation 17-cents-a-pack cigarette tax, received all Fs. It was one of only six states that flunked completely — not a point of pride.
In its 10th year of its “State of Tobacco Control” report, the national health advocacy group gives Minnesota an “A” for promoting a smoke-free environment; a “C” for its level of taxation on cigarettes; a “D” for insurance coverage for cessation treatment and services, and an “F” for funding of treatments and services to help smokers quit.
In its annual State of Tobacco Control report, the American Lung Association gave Virginia and five other states failing grades for tobacco-prevention funding, cigarette taxes, public smoking laws and health coverage for tobacco cessation.
Charles Connor, president of the Lung Association, said most states did a poor job at tobacco prevention efforts last year. Too many states, he said, “are turning away from proven interventions and are doing less to keep kids from smoking.”
The American Lung Association released its state-by-state report Thursday. Connecticut received an “F” for spending only a fraction of its $500 million tobacco revenues on smoking prevention and control and an “F” for minimal coverage of smoke cessation programs. But the average sales tax of $3.40 per cigarette pack earned the state an “A,” and Connecticut laws restricting smoking in public places received a “C.”
For the second time in two years, Santa Clara County scored an overall A for its efforts in banning tobacco smoke from dining and recreation areas, among other places; creating smoke-free housing; and reducing the sales of tobacco products. By contrast, San Jose scored an overall C for the same three categories, while the rest of the cities in the county scored either a D or an F.
But to earn a better statewide grade, the American Lung Association is urging Californians to pass the California Cancer Research Act on the June 2012 ballot. The measure would increase the state’s tobacco tax by $1 per pack, and the revenues would go to researching, treating and preventing lung disease, heart disease, stroke, cancer and other tobacco-related illnesses.
Missouri is considered one of the friendliest states for smokers with the country’s lowest tax rate at 17 cents a pack. There is no statewide indoor smoking ban, although several municipalities including St. Louis have passed smoke-free ordinances in recent years.
