Summer 2017 SAVI Online Magazine Emagazine Summer 2017 mn and ae edits - web | Page 10

A long way come, a long way to go
Photo courtesy of WhyQuit.com
health issues want to quit, but for some of
them it’s a coping mechanism, or strategy,
that helps them reduce their stress.”
There are good reasons to quantify
tobacco retailing in relationship to
high smoking rates in Indiana and the
Indianapolis metro area. The stakes
are high on multiple levels, beginning
with economics.
Each year, healthcare expenses related
to smoking cost Indiana an estimated $3
billion. The state and federal tax bill for
treating smoking-related diseases, per
household, is about $900. And, the annual
cost for lost productivity due to smoking is
another estimated $3 billion.
Smoking also imposes profound
human costs across all age ranges. Nearly
20 percent of deaths in the state are
attributable to it, according to Caine, while
in Utah, which has the lowest percent of
smoking-related deaths, the figure is less
than 10 percent.
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The “common sense” about smoking,
which blames it on a weakness of individual
will, underplays the addictive power of
tobacco and the power of marketing that
targets vulnerable populations. Tobacco
is “aggressively and skillfully marketed by
the tobacco companies,” Caine says, and
smoking is “often perceived as a bad habit
that’s easily broken. Too often, it’s not
seen as a public health issue” that can be
dramatically influenced—for good or bad—by
public policy.
Caine notes that Indiana has had some
notable recent success in this arena. Over
the past five years, the smoking rate has
dropped by several points, from the mid-20s
to the low-20s, and there are some small but
important signs of progress. For example,
the Indianapolis Motor Speedway recently
announced that it would ban smoking in
grandstand seats beginning in late 2017.
“We’ve come a long way,” Caine says.
“I don’t think, even 10 to 15 years ago,
people realized the extent of the harm done
by smoking.”
For all the progress, though, much more
could be done. Indiana should invest about
$74 million per year in tobacco control,
according to the Centers for Disease
Control’s recommendation. Yet the state’s
tobacco control programs receive only
$7 million annually in state and federal
funding. Tobacco companies, meantime,
spend nearly $285 million on marketing their
products in the state each year.