Email
Password
(Forgot Password?)
* Seventy-six percent of all white-collar workers had smoke-free work environments in 1999, compared to 52.2 percent of blue-collar workers and 57.5 percent of service workers. Overall, nearly 70 percent of the U.S. indoor workforce reported working under a smoke-free policy in 1999, compared with 46 percent in 1993 and just 3 percent in 1986.
* Female workers, regardless of occupational class, were significantly more likely than males to work in a smoke-free environment.
* Almost 91 percent of primary school teachers in the United States have smoke-free workplaces.
Jump to full article »
Q: Why are your findings on workplace smoking policies so important?
A: When we're looking at workplace smoking policies in this country, really being able to understand who's protected with these policies and who is not helps you understand how you can focus your efforts in the future to improve people's health.
At least 10 percent of U.S. smokers would quit and 3 million premature deaths would be prevented if 10 policy changes were instituted nationwide.
So says a federally appointed panel that culled available scientific evidence on tobacco addiction and how to curb it. The panel's report, "A National Action Plan for Tobacco Cessation," includes six recommendations from the Department of Health and Human Services, and four recommendations to achieve the end through public-private partnerships. . . .
These recommendations, which the panel suggests should go into effect by fiscal year 2005, would cost more than $5 billion each year. Funding would come from the $2-per-pack tax. Half of the estimated $28 billion in annual revenue generated by the tax will be earmarked for programs that help people to quit smoking or prevent them from starting.
By comparison, in 2001, the six largest tobacco companies spent $11.2 billion on advertising and promotions. (See details.)
The panel, established by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, was a subcommittee of the department's Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health (ICSH). It was led by Michael C. Fiore, M.D., M.P.H.
Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is no longer on the air pitching a statewide indoor smoking ban, but questions linger about the $100,000 advertising campaign.
The questions are part of a wider debate about who's behind the increasingly tense tobacco war in Pierce County and statewide.
Businesses that oppose smoking bans like the one in Pierce County allege that a state group funded mostly by an $8 billion New Jersey foundation is violating state law by failing to report how much it received and spent on its effort to restrict smoking in Washington state.
Anti-smoking advocates fire back that business interests fighting the ban are secretly doing the tobacco industry's bidding. . . .
The Johnson foundation issued the 2002 grant to Washington BREATHE through its SmokeLess States National Tobacco Policy Initiative. The foundation said the grant was for "mobilizing grass-roots advocates for the elimination of secondhand smoke in public places," according to the initiative's Web site.
Steven Schroeder: I am a physician with training in internal medicine and public health and with a long interest in health policy. For most of my professional life I was in academic positions, first at Harvard, then at George Washington, and from 1976-1990 at the University of California, San Francisco. At UCSF, I was professor of medicine and founding chief of its Division of General Internal Medicine. From July 1990 until December 2002 I served as President of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey. I have now returned to UCSF to direct a new center . . .
It is hard to claim that RWJF's efforts in tobacco control crowded out other funders, since there were no private funders before we entered the field. Now ACS and Legacy are major players, and I hope that others will join. It would be a mistake to think of any funder "owning" a field, especially one as important as tobacco control. . .
My position at UCSF is as Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care, as well as Director of a RWJF-supported Smoking Cessation Leadership Center. The Center is premised on the following: of the 46 million smokers in the US; one third will die of smoking if they don't quit; 70% would like to quit yet most cannot; their chances of quitting are increased if they are encouraged by a health professional; yet most health professionals do not help their patients to quit. We will be working with leaders of the health professions to encourage their constituents to do a better job as cessation advocates.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RJWF) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), working together, are launching a five-year program aimed at developing effective, practical strategies for changing Americans' unhealthy behaviors through primary care.
The goal is to reverse four risky behaviors that have been identified as the nation's leading causes of preventable disease and premature death: physical inactivity, poor diet, tobacco use, and risky alcohol use. The new program, called Prescription for Health, will seek to identify ways for primary care physicians and their staff, including nurse practitioners and physician assistants, to help their patients become more physically active, eat better, avoid or quit smoking, and use alcohol in moderation.
"Primary care providers who see patients every day have enormous power to motivate people to make healthy lifestyle changes," said J. Michael McGinnis, M.D., senior vice president and director of RWJF's health group. "We hope this program can help those on the frontlines of health care lead the way for active, healthy living."
A new report released today finds that young people are experimenting with drugs, alcohol, and tobacco at early ages. The report also finds that illicit drug and tobacco use increased dramatically among youth through the mid-1990s. . .
It also reports that the economic cost of substance abuse is staggering, estimated at more than $414 billion in 1995. Of the more than two million deaths each year in the U.S., one in four is attributable to alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use. In 1995, health care spending associated with alcohol, tobacco, and drug abuse was estimated at more than $114 billion. . .
Among people with less education, smoking is more common, and smoking cessation less likely. In addition, heavy smoking is higher among those without a high school diploma. Similarly, current illicit drug use is twice as high among those aged 26 to 34 who have not completed high school than among those in the same age group with a college degree. Use of multiple drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, is common among substance abusers, particularly among the economically disadvantaged.
**** Gender Differences in Substance Abuse: Gender differences are most apparent among heavy users. Males are almost four times as likely as females to be heavy drinkers, nearly one and a half times as likely to smoke a pack or more of cigarettes a day, and twice as likely to smoke marijuana weekly.
**** Regulation on Smoking and Alcohol Use: In the past decade, tax increases and regulatory strategies have been an increasing focus of efforts to further reduce alcohol and tobacco use. It is estimated that a 50 percent increase in cigarette prices would result in a 12.5 percent reduction in the number of smokers, or 3.5 million fewer smokers nationwide. Although some states have raised excise taxes, the U.S. cigarette tax remains among the lowest in the developed world. Clean indoor air laws and legislation lowering the legal drunk driving limits for adults and youth are increasingly popular ways of reducing tobacco and alcohol use.
"We know we can treat addiction or the use of drugs and alcohol with the same effectiveness that we treat many other chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease," says Dr. Michael McGinnis, senior vice president and director of the foundation's health group. "And yet the fact is that we miss virtually no opportunities to treat these other diseases, but we miss nearly 80 percent of the opportunities to treat substance abuse."
Horgan says the report "is basically a synthesis of hundreds of different research findings. What is unique I think, is that it tries to tell the story of how substance abuse is the nation's No. 1 treatable health problem." . .
In 2000, 52 percent of eighth graders had tried alcohol, 41 percent had smoked cigarettes and 20 percent had used pot. "The younger use begins, the more likely the users are to have substance abuse problems later in life, especially if the use begins before age 15," Horgan says.
The media continues to manipulate cultural views about drugs and alcohol.
The report was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropic group in Princeton, N.J., that supports health-care research. Analysts who reviewed hundreds of substance-abuse studies linked one in four U.S. deaths to tobacco, alcohol or drug use. [This graph only]
Substance abuse is the nation's top health problem, causing more deaths, illness and disabilities than any other preventable health problem today, according to a major report to be issued today.
Of the more than 2 million deaths each year in the United States, about one in four is due to abuse of alcohol, tobacco or illicit drugs, the report says. The economic cost of the abuse is estimated at more than $414 billion a year.
"This is an enormous burden that affects all of society - people who abuse alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs, and those who do not," says the report prepared for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's largest health care philanthropy. . .
The report, which exceeds 110 pages, is consistent with other research and is believed to be the most comprehensive single-volume examination of the problems of substance abuse. . .
Tobacco use causes 430,700 deaths a year and creates $138 billion in annual costs. Cigarette use continues to decline, with consumption in 2000 the lowest since 1963. Cigar use has increased recently. Every year, more than 5 million years of life could have been saved if every person who died from cigarette smoking had lived to his or her average life expectancy. . .
The effects of substance abuse spread to virtually every corner of modern society, the report says.
Exposure to second-hand smoke, for example, is "an acknowledged health hazard" that each year causes 3,000 lung-cancer deaths among nonsmokers, the report says. In addition, more than 6,000 deaths among children each year are linked to parental smoking, primarily from low birth weights caused by smoking during pregnancy. . .
the massive document also includes a section on the role of the media in shaping popular perceptions of the risks involved in using alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs.