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EDITORIAL: Renew the Push Against Smoking: Anti-Tobacco Messages Need a Bigger Boost

Posted on: Monday, 2 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By Detroit Free Press, Detroit Free Press

Jan. 2--It's a bit hypocritical to wag a finger at smokers when state governments undermine prevention efforts by raiding money from tobacco lawsuit settlements.

Only four states -- Colorado, Delaware, Maine and Mississippi -- fund prevention at the minimum suggested levels. The rest of America, including Michigan, needs to buck up on anti-smoking education and smoking cessation programs -- particularly targeted at young people.

A recent report from University of Michigan researchers suggests that progress on the anti-smoking front is stagnating.

Researchers found that 30-day smoking rates -- the percent of students who say they've had at least one cigarette in that period -- have dropped significantly from their mid-1990s peaks. Among eighth-graders, an important barometer group, 21% reported smoking in 1996, compared to 9.2% in 2004. The difference looks steep but for 2005 the number held steady, which is alarming after years of consistent declines.

Meanwhile, tobacco companies continue to tout their product, albeit with less direct appeals than the taboo Joe Camel. The $41.5 million spent daily on promotion as of 2003 does not put cigarettes directly in teens' hands. But it surely ratchets up the cool factor in their eyes.

No state can compete with the mighty tobacco dollar, but surely they can do better than spending one dollar on anti-smoking education and enforcement for every $28 the cigarette companies spend to peddle their wares. In Michigan, tobacco settlement money has

been diverted to cover everything from Medicaid to Merit scholarships.

States were handed a windfall with the tobacco settlements, earned on the deaths and illnesses of real people. It should honor them -- and protect the living -- by devoting more than lip service to anti-smoking efforts.

To read the U-M report, funded by the National Institutes of Health, go to www.monitoringthefuture.org.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Detroit Free Press

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Source: Detroit Free Press

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