Tobacco Report: PA Earns Failing Grades
The American Lung Association report gives Pennsylvania two failing grades.
The American Lung Association says Pennsylvania is not adequately funding programs to protect children and cut back on illnesses related to tobacco use.
This comes as a result of Wednesday’s release of its State of Tobacco Control 2013 report. This is the 11th year for the report which looks at how states and the federal government are spending their money on tobacco control programs.
Pennsylvania received the following grades for 2012.
- F in Funding for Tobacco Prevention and Control Programs (11% of CDC recommended spending)
- C in Smokefree Air
- C in Cigarette Taxes ($1.60 per pack)
- F in Cessation Coverage
“Pennsylvania must make it a priority to invest in programs that keep kids off tobacco and to help smokers quit,” says Deb Brown, president and CEO of the American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic, in a press release. “That starts with increasing Pennsylvania’s current level of tobacco prevention and cessation funding.”
The American Lung Association estimates tobacco annually
- Causes 20,025 deaths in Pennsylvania
- Costs Pennsylvania $9.4 billion in healthcare costs and lost productivity
- Causes 443,000 deaths in the Unites States
The Lung Association is calling on Pennsylvania to raise taxes on tobacco products other than cigarettes.
“While no state earned an A or B on its report card for cessation, the Affordable Care Act creates new pathways to help smokers quit,” Brown says in a press release. “That is why Pennsylvania must include a cessation benefit in its Essential Health Benefit and Medicaid expansion plans.”
What do you think? Should the state be spending more money on tobacco education programs? Should there be more recources put into cessation programs? Should taxes on tobacco products be raised? Share your thoughts in the comments area below.
CVP
9:06 am on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Pennsylvania has the most sensible tobacco tax policy in the country: While it puts a lot of excise on the highly harmful form of tobacco, cigarettes, it does not punish people who instead choose to use a low-risk smoke-free alternative. Raising the tax on smoke-free alternatives would encourage more smokers to keep smoking instead of switching to products like smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes whose risks are so low they cannot be measured, and are thus about the same as quitting entirely. For smokers who want more information on quitting by switching to low-risk alternatives, you might want to check out casaa.org.
kevin
2:40 pm on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
"products like smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes whose risks are so low they cannot be measured"
It's 2013 and this guy still thinks smokeless tobacco is safe. Unless you live in rural Kyrgyzstan, there's no excuse for your ignornace. 37,000 new cases of oral and pharyngeal cancer per year. Risks measured.
Matt Zukowski
3:44 am on Tuesday, January 22, 2013
@kevin
"It's 2013 and this guy still thinks smokeless tobacco is safe"
..er than smoking
Look how the FDA's leading expert uses research on smokeless tobacco to justify long term use of NRPs. Because smokeless tobacco doesn't contribute to common cancers, nicotine isn't a carcinogen.
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/NewsEvents/UCM232147.pdf
"37,000 new cases of oral and pharyngeal cancer per year"
True, about 8000 of those people will drop dead every year, of those most are from SMOKING, around 6500 or so IIRC. How many of those are attributed to smokeless tobacco use? Virtually none? Thank you. And oddly enough if smokeless tobacco carried with it a relative risk of oral cancers equal to smoking this would be a huge net win. Out of the 400,000+ fatalities the bulk are heart/lung disease and lung caner. But even dry snuff, the highest risk product, the relative risk is over half of smoking, with Swedish snus showing no elevated relative risk.
"Unless you live in rural Kyrgyzstan, there's no excuse for your ignornace"
I'm not the one who ignorant. You're citing the oral cancer figures, far from the typical result from smoking, and suggesting they're somehow linked to smokeless tobacco. This ignorance kills when someone who uses smokeless tobacco thinks cigarettes are just as safe.
Elizabeth
1:33 pm on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Outside conestoga(martin's Lane, for one) students come during and after school to smoke and be cool. Apparently it is against the law to BUY the cigarettes, but not to smoke them--as the police say they can do nothing to stop it. If we can't stop people from buying cigarettes for children, a larger tax isn't going to help much.
Perhaps a parental education program in midle school such as "what to do when your child starts smoking?" Or "signs your child is smoking". "How your child pays for cigarettes", "peer pressure now and later". "How does being a smoker affect your employment?" Etc. it may be cool to smoke as a teen, but it is definitely a "low rent" activity as an adult.
If a parent smokes, they probably can't smell the smoke in the car or on their clothes.
corey
2:21 pm on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
I am a fomer smoker and Billie Goldstein at Phoenixville Hospital runs a wonderful smoking cessation, thanks to her classes, I have been smoke free for over 11 months and 2 weeks. This is after smoking 1 pack a day for 33 years. If you would like to quit, call Bille at 610 983-1021. A Grateful Recovery Nicotine Addict
CVP
2:46 pm on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Kevin, You might consider learning at least a tiny bit about what you are talking about before you comment. Swedish and American smokeless tobacco has now been shown, in numerous studies, to not cause a measurable risk for oral cancer. The number you quote is the total number of *all* such cancers in the US. Even someone who suffers from the common error of believing the (old) propaganda that smokeless tobacco causes those cancers, surely it is not difficult to understand that it could not possibly cause *all* of those cancer.
And, yes, it is 2013. Which makes it such a pity that so many people believe anti-smokeless tobacco propaganda from the 1980s.
1
3:02 pm on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
My guess is "CVP" owns a tobacco shop....trying to claim chew (ie. smokeless tobacco) doesn't cause mouth and throat cancer is laughable. Just read the warnings on the label dips hit and go peddle your poison some place else!
kevin
3:20 pm on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
absolutely right cvp. Regular cigarettes could be included as a cause in that number of 37,000. So lets be generous to your arguement and say 75% of those are caused by smoke related tobacco. We are still at nearly 10,000 new cancers every year caused by smokeless tobacco. You can site whatever study you like but smokeless tobacco increases risk for cancers of the mouth and upper respiratory tract. Thats not a fact up for debate.
Matt Zukowski
3:49 am on Tuesday, January 22, 2013
"..trying to claim chew (ie. smokeless tobacco) doesn't cause mouth and throat cancer is laughable"
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/NewsEvents/UCM232147.pdf
Yes, Swedish snus is not connected to oral cancers. Chew is, as is dry snuff and moist snuff. The funny thing even the most dangerous form of oral tobacco is so much less risky than smoking it's unbelievable.
"Just read the warnings on the label "
Yeah, don't cite some epidemiological research or anything.
Matt Zukowski
3:57 am on Tuesday, January 22, 2013
"So lets be generous to your arguement and say 75% of those are caused by smoke related tobacco. "
That's actually close to reality. The yearly fatality rate is ~6800 specifically for smoking.
"We are still at nearly 10,000 new cancers every year caused by smokeless tobacco. "
As opposed to 400,000+ fatalities from SMOKING, of which ~6800 are from oral cancers? This is where that 98% less harmful figure comes from.
Let's say the entire population dropped cigarettes, with 100% saturation of smokeless tobacco, a 5x increase, and the current fatality rate was 400,000 with 20% of the population smoking. 100% smokeless tobacco use would bring this body count to 40,000. That is if every man, women, and child used smokeless tobacco with a oral cancer risk equal to smoking 360,000 lives would be saved.
And the funny thing is the relative risk of oral cancer is over 10x baseline. So this figure in practice would be MUCH lower.
And funny, you're opposed to this. Odd.
You can site whatever study you like but smokeless tobacco increases risk for cancers of the mouth and upper respiratory tract. Thats not a fact up for debate.
Dr KF
4:29 pm on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
What kind of "science" is this? Where does the 75% or whatever number comes from? Since 1990 (a period when newer products with less notrosamines were produced) the increase in oropharyngeal cancer risk from smokeless tobacco was ZERO (overall data from 18 studies- Lee et al., BMC Public Health 2009). If Europe adopted the tobacco policy of Sweden (where smokeless tobacco is very popular, there would be a 54% reduction in lung cancer deaths (Rodu, Harm Reduction Journal 2011)! But even if there was a small risk, the benefiots from lowering risk for all other conditions caused by smoking would outweight any risk.
By increasing the tax in tobacco alternatives, you just let more people continue smoking. Because approved smoking cessation means are ridiculously effective (6% sucess with placebo, 19.7% success with oral medications, less than 10% success with NRT). This leaves at least 80% of smokers that are unable to quit. Not allowing them to get the benefit from smokeless tobacco or electronic cigarettes is an ethical crime.
Instead of everyone saying his own biased opinion, show what the DATA say!!!
Patricia Clewell
5:20 pm on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
I understand the shock of hearing it (since the exact opposite has been drilled into our heads forever), but the truth is that smoking increases the risk for oral cancer far more than using smokeless tobacco does. A lot of what we're told from the anti-tobacco groups is propaganda. They don't want anyone using tobacco of any kind, so they distort the truth (or flat-out lie), much the way a parent would do with a child. Outrageous, really….
The truth is that smokeless tobacco is about 98% safer than smoking. It's not risk-free (what is?), but it's close enough to risk-free that it would save a lot of lives if smokers switched to it (or if would-be smokers used it instead). Google the Switch and Quit Program at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center/University of Louisville--a program that encourages smokers who can't or don't want to quit to switch to a low-risk alternative, like smokeless tobacco or electronic cigarettes. The research to support tobacco harm reduction is solid.
For the record, I don't profit from anything to do with this subject. I switched to an electronic cigarette 4 years ago (after 30+ years of smoking), and as I was doing my own research into vaping--and saw how much misinformation there was about e-cigarettes--I discovered the same was true for smokeless tobacco.
Hating Big Tobacco is understandable; hating Big Tobacco at the expense of human life is insanity.
kevin
8:09 pm on Wednesday, January 16, 2013
I feel bad that our society does not stress obtaining information from reliable sources like peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, but I can tell you that all of the real scientific data on this subject is exactly the opposite of your views and information. New journal articles are being published monthly on this subject. A striking article in the Internationl Journal of Cancer in October of 2012 by Zhou et. al. states the following:
"We examined the relationship between smokeless tobacco use and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) in a population-based case–control study with 1,046 cases and 1,239 frequency-matched controls. Logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI), adjusting for age, gender, race, education level, cigarette smoking, and alcohol consumption. Individuals who reported 10 or more years of smokeless tobacco use had a significantly elevated risk of HNSCC (OR = 4.06, 95% CI: 1.31–12.64), compared to never users. In an analysis restricted to never cigarette smokers, a statistically significant association was observed between ever use of smokeless tobacco and the risk of HNSCC (OR = 4.21, 95% CI: 1.01–17.57). These findings suggest that long-term use of smokeless tobacco increases the risk of HNSCC."
I encourage you to get more of your information from trusted sources rather than google, facebook, or email forwards.
Patricia Clewell
4:25 am on Thursday, January 17, 2013
Kevin, CVP's link has an entire section of peer-reviewed studies. Dr KF's reference is also from a peer-reviewed journal. This "wide-ranging review summarizes evidence relating snus to health and to initiation and cessation of smoking. Meta-analyses are included. After smoking adjustment, snus is unassociated with cancer of the oropharynx (meta-analysis RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.68-1.37), oesophagus (1.10, 0.92-1.33), stomach (0.98, 0.82-1.17), pancreas (1.20, 0.66-2.20), lung (0.71, 0.66-0.76) or other sites, or with heart disease (1.01, 0.91-1.12) or stroke (1.05, 0.95-1.15). No clear associations are evident in never smokers, any possible risk from snus being much less than from smoking…."
Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2011 Mar;59(2):197-214. doi: 10.1016/j.yrtph.2010.12.002. Epub 2010 Dec 14.
Decades of evidence shows that modern smokeless tobacco products are >98% safer than smoking. Claims to the contrary are driven by moral, ideological, or financial reasons that have nothing to do with health. I understand this is hard for you to believe. It's nonetheless true.
About 50 million Americans smoke. Despite decades of health campaigns, social stigma, high taxes, ever-restrictive bans, and a variety of cessation products, about 50 million Americans continue to smoke. Low-risk alternatives like smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes are viable options for many of those smokers. Doesn't it make sense to ensure those options are as attractive, accessible, and affordable as possible?