More Adults Ignore Risks of Smoking
It makes no sense. Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and illness in the United States. It also causes cancer, heart disease and other fatal conditions.
Yet, just when federal officials were hoping for further reductions in the number of adults who smoke, the figures go up slightly.
That was the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta last week. According to the most recent survey taken in 2008, a little less than 21 percent of U.S. adults said they smoked. That’s up slightly from the year before when 19.8 percent said they smoked cigarettes.
More importantly, it was the first time in almost 15 years the survey showed an increase in smokers. Health officials had hoped the U.S. smoking rate had moved permanently below 20 percent.
“Clearly, we’ve hit a wall in reducing adult smoking,” said Vince Willmore, spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy organization.
There’s a general perception related to indoor smoking laws and higher cigarette taxes that smoking is a fading public health danger. But health officials believe that those gains have been undermined by cuts in state tobacco control campaigns. In some or many of those campaigns, money designated for programs designed to discourage or prevent smoking has been diverted to economic development or other programs not at all related to anti-smoking efforts.
Willmore pointed out that the tobacco industry has been discounting cigarette prices to offset tax increases to keep smokes more affordable.
Dr. Clyde Yancey, president of the American Heart Association, said the tobacco industry had done little to discourage young smokers. He said cigarette marketing has persisted and is effectively reaching children and minorities with messages about flavored or menthol products.
Once youngsters are addicted to cigarettes, it is easy for them to carry the habit into adulthood.
So is smoking harmful and are the medical treatments to repair the damage expensive for the public sector? When the House of Representatives approved landmark legislation last spring giving the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products, members described huge health care costs associated with smoking.
Supporters of the FDA bill cited figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that smokers cost the country $96 billion a year in direct health care costs. They also cost an additional $97 billion a year in lost productivity. That includes the days they were not able to work because of illness caused by smoking.
The adult smoking rate has been dropping since the mid-1960s when roughly 2 out of 5 U.S. adults smoked. Now it’s 1 in 5. But federal health goals for 2010 had hoped to bring to bring the rate down to close to 1 in 10, cutting it in half again.
The health problems caused by smoking are clear and undeniable. Smokers also inflict many of those same problems on those around them who do not smoke, according to the American Lung Association, among other organizations.
If potentially new smokers would only take a look at the statistics, they would know how harmful — and how addictive — smoking is to their health. The most sensible course — for children and adults — is to avoid that first cigarette.
