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OPINIONS
Editorial: Smoking remains one of area's main health problems
Although it's been 40 years since the surgeon general warned of smoking's effect on our health, many people still smoke. In West Virginia, 25.4 percent of men and 26.1 percent of women smoke, while in Kentucky, 29.1 percent of men and 28 percent of women smoke. The rates in Ohio were lower with 24.9 percent of men and 20.1 percent of women partaking in the habit.
Purchase this photoWhy, more than 40 years after the surgeon general's warning first appeared on cigarette packs, do people still smoke?
A study released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with several other health groups and agencies shows smoking remains highest in the South and the Midwest, and people there pay the price.
According to the study, 25.4 percent of West Virginia men and 26.1 percent of adult women smoked in 2006. Men had the seventh-highest rate of smoking in the nation, while women had the second-highest rate. Smoking was most common in Kentucky, where men and women both had the highest rate of smoking in the nation, at 29.1 percent and 28 percent, respectively.
Rates were lower in Ohio, with 24.9 percent for men and 20.1 percent for women.
Smoking rates were lower for people age 12 to 17. Again, Kentucky led the nation at 17.2 percent, and West Virginia was second at 16 percent. Ohio's rate was lower, at 12.8 percent.
The news was equally bad when it came to smoking's effect on our health. Kentucky men and women had the highest death rates from lung cancer. West Virginia men were seventh, while West Virginia women were third. Ohio ranked 14th in death rates from lung cancer for both men and women.
"Most Southern and Midwestern states continue to have a high prevalence of smoking and low excise tax, despite compelling evidence that excise taxes and other components of comprehensive tobacco control can achieve substantial reductions in tobacco use. Many Southern states have historically been economically dependent on tobacco farming and production," the report said.
"Reductions in tobacco use provide the largest single opportunity to prevent nearly one-third of cancer deaths through the application of existing knowledge. State policies have an important influence on smoking initiation and cessation. Recent reports by the Institute of Medicine and the CDC document that states with comprehensive tobacco control programs experience more rapid decreases in per capita cigarette sales, smoking prevalence and lung cancer than states without such programs."
It might be good that young people in the three states smoke less than their elders, but it's hard to predict how many nonsmoking youth will take up the habit as they age.
Obesity has gotten much of the attention lately when it comes to health problems in the Tri-State area and in West Virginia, but tobacco use remains a problem. Smoking is on the decline, and most places in the area have enacted clean-air regulations to restrict smoking indoors. No longer do nonsmokers in a restaurant or a theater have to breathe secondhand cigarette smoke.
As the numbers show, all three states still have far to go in reducing tobacco use.
The area and the three states have worked outward from their antismoking programs to tackle the equally important issues of obesity, fitness and nutrition. But people in this region must not forget that tobacco use -- smoking and smokeless -- remains one of the primary health problems that must continue to be addressed.
Let's not think the war against tobacco use has been won and that we can ease up. As the numbers show, we dare not.
