Today, HHS and the Office of the Surgeon General released their 31st tobacco use report, Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults. The report includes the latest information about the trends of youth tobacco use and its devastating impact on health. The report also details the tobacco industry's continued efforts to addict kids to its deadly products through insidious marketing and promotion directed at youth. With that evidence, the report endorses the effectiveness of proven methods to prevent kids from smoking and encourage all smokers to quit: strong smoke-free workplace policies, higher tobacco excise taxes and fully funded tobacco cessation programs. ACS CAN has been working for years to implement these policies at the state and local level nationwide. This year alone we are involved in two major campaigns to increase state tobacco taxes in California and Missouri. In California, the California Cancer Research Act (CCRA) will appear on the June 5 state ballot. If passed, this initiative would raise the tax on cigarettes in California by $1 per pack and increase rates on other tobacco products by an equivalent percentage. Eighty percent of the new revenue, approximately $600 million annually, would be directed to research on cancer and tobacco related diseases and to tobacco prevention and cessation efforts. In Missouri, which currently has the lowest cigarette tax in the country at 17 cents per pack, we are working on a November ballot initiative to raise the tax by 73 cents. Perhaps the finding that I found most interesting in the new report is there is now evidence which shows that advertising by Big Tobacco not only encourages youth to start using tobacco, but also encourages them to keep using these deadly and addictive products. This type of evidence just makes the strong implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act even more critical because it will rein in Big Tobacco's ability to market directly to our nation's youth. An estimated 3,800 kids pick up their first cigarette every day and 9 in 10 current smokers start before the age of 18. Under the Act, many things are being done to curb these trends including the ban of candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes, a ban on kiddie packs (small packs of 20 or fewer cigarettes that were cheaper and attractive to kids) and a ban on all tobacco sponsorships at sporting and cultural events. You can see from this great timeline the FDA put together that there are several more regulations to come under the Act between now and 2014, and ACS CAN will work hard to make sure the law is strongly implemented to protect our children from the dangers of Big Tobacco.
Today’s blog is one of a series of posts highlighting how ACS CAN is examining, prioritizing and pursuing policy interventions that ensure everyone has an equal opportunity to prevent, find, treat and survive cancer. Achieving health equity in communities nationwide is a cornerstone of our mission.