BISMARCK, N.D. – Aug. 9, 2018 – North Dakota gets mixed reviews when it comes to implementing legislation to prevent and reduce suffering and death from cancer according to the latest edition of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network’s How Do You Measure Up?: A Progress Report on State Legislative Activity to Reduce Cancer Incidence and Mortality, released today.
“North Dakota should be proud of its scores for smoke-free laws and state funding of tobacco control,” said Deb Knuth, ACS CAN North Dakota government relations director. “But this report clearly shows the work we have to do to improve our tobacco tax. That will be the focus of our work in the 2019 legislative session.”
How Do You Measure Up? rates states in nine specific areas of public policy that can help fight cancer, including increase access to care through Medicaid, funding for screening programs, smoke-free laws, cigarette tax levels, funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs, and cessation coverage under Medicaid. The report also looks at whether a state provides a balances approach to pain medication and if it has passed policies proven to increase patient quality of life.
A color-coded system classifies how well a state is doing in each issue. Green shows that a state has adopted evidence-based policies and best practices; yellow indicates moderate movement toward the benchmark; and red shows where states are falling short.
“ACS CAN and our volunteers will be working with lawmakers this session to raise the tobacco tax by a $1.50 per pack of cigarettes,” explained Knuth. “We know that is one of the best ways to encourage those who want to quit to finally do it. Our poor ranking for our cigarette tax in the How Do You Measure Up report just reinforces that we are overdue in taking this step.”
To view the complete report and details on North Dakota’s grades, visit fightcancer.org/measure.
ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit www.fightcancer.org.