Tobacco is an agricultural product acting as a stimulant triggering complex biochemical and neurotransmitter disruptions. Its main ingredient is nicotine and it is present in all cigarettes. Early tobacco usage was for medical cures and religious purposes. In the 1990s, cigarette usage became increasingly popular when it was sold in mass amounts. The popularity of smoking increased and in 1964, the Surgeon General of the United States wrote a report concerning the dangers of cigarette smoking. In the United States, for the past 50 years efforts have been made so that the public should be aware of the risks of tobacco usage.
Contents
- Nonprofit groups
- State legislative efforts
- Youth initiatives
- Economic impact
- Smoking costs in Alabama
- Alabama bills on smoking
- Tobacco and Alabamas youth
- References
In Alabama, 22.1% of the adult population (ages 18+), over 783,000 individuals, are current cigarette smokers. Across all states, the prevalence of cigarette smoking among adults ranges from 9.3% to 26.5%. Alabama ranks 42nd among the states. Among youth ages 12–17, 12.0% smoke in Alabama. The range across all states is 6.5% to 15.9%. Alabama ranks 40th among the states.
Among adults age 35+ years, over 7,600 died as a result of tobacco use per year, on average, during 2000–2004. This represents a smoking-attributable mortality rate of 317.5 per 100,000. Alabama's smoking-attributable mortality rate ranks 44th among the states. Also, approximately 850 adult non-smokers die each year from exposure to secondhand smoke.
Nonprofit groups
The American Lung Association, an organization which campaigns against the use of tobacco, is a member of the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Alabama and works towards reducing the tobacco usage in the state. They try to discourage tobacco usage by working to create smoke-free environments and advocating an increase of tobacco taxes.
State legislative efforts
While Alabama does not have a statewide smoking ban, smoking is prohibited in many public places and meetings because of the Alabama Clean Indoor Act which was enacted in 2003. State local governments have their own bans against smoking in their counties. A bill for a statewide smoking ban failed in the Alabama Legislature in May 2008. Alabama attempted to pass a smoking ban again in 2009, that was stalled when its author, Vivian Figures, pulled the bill from Senate consideration after it was amended by Senate to include smoking exemptions in certain places. In March 2011, a new bill was proposed, that if passed would ban smoking in all public places.
Youth initiatives
In 2008, a student group called Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) received $28,000 from the Alabama Department of Public Health to spread their message. SWAT operates out of Bryant, LeFlore and Murphy high schools and Phillips Preparatory middle school.
The Youth Empowerment Program is a peer-teaching model that provides anti-tobacco messages to more than 58,000 teens according to Alabama's state health officer Don Williamson. The state funds community groups to educate people about the dangers of second-hand smoke and to encourage young people to reject tobacco use. The State Health Department also has a new teen cessation project that uses advertising on television and radio, as well as a MySpace page.
The Auburn CARES Coalition and the Alabama Department of Public Health encourage young people to make healthy tobacco-free choices and for those using chewing tobacco to quit. ADPH offers a free support and counseling service to help users successfully quit.
Economic impact
The State of Tobacco Control 2010 Report grades states on their anti-tobacco efforts; in this report, Alabama received straight "Fs". The state was graded in four categories:
Alabama ranked right at the bottom in all four categories. For every smoker in Alabama, $993 a year is spent on hospital care as a result of smoking. A national study shows that Alabama’s economy suffers $5.6 billion a year in direct costs because of smoking, which also includes more than $1 billion in lost workplace productivity and $1.7 billion in direct medical expenditures.
Smoking costs in Alabama
• Alabamians spend $842 million a year on drugs directly as a result of smoking.
• Nearly $125 million a year is spent by Alabamians in nursing homes directly as a result of smoking.
• For every smoker in Alabama, $993 a year is spent on hospital care as a result of smoking.
• Annual health care costs in Alabama directly caused by smoking: $1.49billion
• Portion covered by the state Medicaid program: $238million
• Residents’ state and federal tax burden from smoking-caused government expenditures: $540.
•Smoking-caused productivity losses in Alabama: $2.24billion.
Alabama bills on smoking
Specific smoking regulatory bills passed in Alabama include the following:
Tobacco and Alabama's youth
While the number of high school smokers is at an all-time low, 22.1 percent or 12,400 children under 18 still become new smokers each year. It is estimated that 174,000 kids who are now under the age of 18 and alive in Alabama will ultimately die prematurely from smoking. Furthermore, offsetting the positive trend of reduced smoking rates in youth is an increase in the use of smokeless tobacco products such as snuff, dip, and chew.
A new product called “Snus,” described as a smokeless, spitless, less detectable way to use tobacco is marketed to young users. With higher levels of nicotine than other snuff products, it contains some of the same carcinogens and is more addictive.
On the 2009 Auburn City School’s Pride Student Survey, 10 percent of 10th graders and one out of seven seniors reported using smokeless tobacco products in the last year. This is a dangerous trend since smokeless tobacco products are not safer, and a user’s chance of getting oral cancer is 50 times greater than a non-user.