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An ounce of prevention in community health programs could save states hundreds of millions in health-care costs, a new study has found.
The report from the Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit health advocacy group, found that programs encouraging physical activity, healthy eating and no smoking were a better investment than those concentrating primarily on treatment.
The results are laid out in a state-by-state breakdown.The District, the researchers found, would save $9.90 for every dollar invested, or $57 million over five years. Maryland would save $6 for every dollar, for $332 million over five years, and Virginia would save $385 million -- $5.20 for every dollar spent. . . .
Researchers endorsed such initiatives as increased tobacco taxes, smoke-free laws, nutrition labeling on restaurant menus and maintaining sidewalks as low-cost ways to encourage healthy living.
"What's been interesting is that if you make it easier for people to make better choices, they actually do," said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health.
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Shortly after their historic settlement with the tobacco industry, Florida and other states began investing part of their proceeds in an edgy ad campaign aimed at teenagers. . . .
But the good news began to drift away after funding for the national campaign expired and lawmakers in several states began shifting tobacco proceeds from anti-smoking programs to other projects.
Officials at the CDC say now that the decline in teen smoking appears to have stalled. After climbing to 23 percent in 2005, the proportion of teens who smoke hit a low of 20 percent in 2007 -- roughly the same, statistically, as in 2003. . . .
Other states, struggling with budget constraints in a tough economy, aren't investing as much. Virginia included $14.5 million this fiscal year for prevention programs, $1 million more than a year ago but still well below the minimum . . .
Even in tough budget times, it's in the long-term financial interests of every state to stress to teenagers the immense power of nicotine addiction and the painful consequences of succumbing to it.
Shortly after their historic settlement with the tobacco industry, Florida and other states began investing part of their proceeds in an edgy ad campaign aimed at teenagers.
The message was blunt and direct: Cigarette makers have a long history of manipulating people just like you and luring you into a costly and ultimately deadly addiction. Don't fall for it. . . .
teens seem to like the ads, and that's important. The public's stake in reducing tobacco use is huge; annually, smoking-related health care costs are $2.08 billion in Virginia and $2.46 billion in North Carolina.
So imbued with the tobacco culture was Bailey that in the 1990s -- recently married and expecting his first child -- he took a gamble: Despite all the evidence of health risks and the increasing government efforts to curb smoking and regulate manufacturers, he joined his father in taking the giant step of beginning to make their own cigarettes.
The idea could have bankrupted the family. Instead, it has paid off handsomely. Bailey's "Freedom of Choice" cigarettes are sold from Florida to Delaware. The company, based in this sleepy farm town of 800, is thriving and has expanded into new products, including a smokeless brand.
The Baileys' successful plunge reflects the enduring hold cigarettes have on smokers as well as the lobbying power of the tobacco industry and Congress' sympathy for small business, almost regardless of the product.
The push for stricter tobacco regulation has caused the family some anxious moments -- most recently over the current congressional effort to allow the Food and Drug Administration to subject cigarettes to federal standards intended to reduce the ill effects of smoking.
But now, after some adroit lobbying, the bill has been modified to cushion and delay the impact on small producers. As it stands, the Baileys believe, even FDA supervision would be manageable. . . .
Steven acknowledged, "One could argue, 'What kind of example am I setting? Why am I smoking?' I need to consider that."
If he catches either of his sons smoking before they're 18, he said, "I'll jerk a knot in them."
A national trade group has huffed and puffed for city leaders to reconsider the cigarette tax increase that went into effect this week.
The National Association of Tobacco Outlets sent a letter to City Council members asking them to revisit the tax. Councilman Bill DeSteph said "chances are" he would push the issue.
The increase, which started Tuesday, increased the per-pack tax on cigarettes to 61 cents from 50 cents, a 22 percent rise.
Thomas Briant, the trade association's executive director, said the city's decision to repeal a tax increase on machinery and tools - after Stihl Inc. and other manufacturers complained about that 90 percent increase - means the city should listen to tobacco outlets, too.
VCU has accepted research money from Philip Morris, which has the right to review any proposed publication. It's not alone in taking tobacco money -- Philip Morris last year gave $25 million to the University of Virginia.
VCU, with its medical center and cancer-research facility, does not want to be "in bed" with a historically duplicitous industry that produces a public health hazard.
I don't pretend to be impartial. Before his death in 1992, my father spent time at Medical College of Virginia Hospitals as a lung-cancer patient, blocks away from what would become the Philip Morris research and technology center in the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park.
I just received the print edition of the May 29 Times-Dispatch, in which I noticed an editorial about VCU and Philip Morris, "Not Enough Research." . . .
This begs the question of why VCU itself has agreed to create a panel to investigate the matter. But more importantly, in my opinion, it enables VCU to set a bizarre standard of sorts, namely that as long as VCU isn't engaged in Philip Morris-funded research into safer cigarettes, then everything is hunky-dory. On the one hand, this could be interpreted as VCU's acknowledgment that such research would be pointless, absurd, or just plain wrong. But on the other hand, it condones the acceptance of most if not all other kinds of Philip Morris-funded research. This in turn calls to mind the matter of MCV's Institutional Review Board possible approval for human subjects research funded by Philip Morris. How utterly immoral such a situation would be. And just what might such subjects be agreeing to? To keep smoking throughout the experiment?
Controversies about former Richmond Police Chief Rodney D. Monroe's degree and a research agreement with Philip Morris USA warrant further scrutiny, Virginia Commonwealth University President Eugene P. Trani said last night.
Trani said he was saddened by the two recent incidents that have brought the university unfavorable news coverage. . . .
On the Philip Morris controversy, Trani said a task force he appointed will hold two open town-hall meetings in July. The meetings will be held on the MCV and Monroe Park campuses to discuss the university's relationship with outside companies. . . .
VCU's task force will give Trani its report in October.
He said he appointed the task force even though he believes the Times article "treated us unfairly."
A fire that displaced five people from an apartment complex in Pine Street, Suffolk Monday was caused by a discarded cigarette.
"The Fire Marshall's Office of Suffolk Fire and Rescue has determined that the fire was caused by a discarded cigarette and was accidental," said Suffolk spokeswoman Debbie George.
Come Jan. 1, Loudoun County public school employees will no longer be able to light up on campus.
The School Board voted 5 to 2 Tuesday to ban smoking on school property. Employees have been allowed to smoke in designated areas, out of view of students.
The Loudoun County School Board voted 5-2 Tuesday, with one abstention and one member absent, to impose a smoking ban on all school property.
The new regulation bans smoking by anyone-teachers, staff, administration, students, and parents alike-at any school facility or event, including non-academic facilities like the school board administration building.
The ban came under criticism from several board members Tuesday who questioned how such a policy would be enforced and the ethics of imposing such a regulation on adult employees.
Arlington County Board Chairman J. Walter Tejada (D) . . .
Speaking to a collection of county officials and business and nonprofit representatives Tuesday during the annual State of the County address, . . . .
Tejada called on Arlington restaurants to set an example. "Eliminate smoking and eliminate trans-fats," he said. . . .
He announced that the county launched a link on its Web site, http://www.arlingtonva.us/portals/topics/smokefreerestaurants.aspx, that lists smoke-free Arlington restaurants.
Philip Morris USA has ended its three-year test market of a specially filtered cigarette, underscoring the difficulties that cigarette makers face in winning consumers to unconventional smokes.
But it likely won't be Philip Morris USA's last attempt to offer smokers a new product, as the company battles for a larger share of an ever-shrinking domestic cigarette market.
The Henrico County-based tobacco company said yesterday that it has stopped shipping Marlboro UltraSmooth to stores in Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Tampa, Fla., where the carbon-filtered cigarette has been sold since 2005. . . .
Carbon filters have been used on some cigarettes to potentially reduce some of the toxins in smoke, but health experts are skeptical of the benefits to smokers. Philip Morris USA did not claim that Marlboro UltraSmooth was a reduced-risk product, but the company's research has focused on that area for years.
Criticism of VCU has appeared in the press recently concerning arrangements for publication of results from university research that has been supported by Philip Morris. Recognizing that it is popular in some quarters to blast big tobacco or big oil or big pharma, arrangements for delayed publication of research that may have commercial value is commonplace at all universities, for it is an essential step to protect patent rights. . . .
Congress realized that intellectual property owned by everyone was in fact owned by no one, and the subsequent development of that property for the benefit of us all would never occur. The Bayh-Dole Act ensured that intellectual property created with taxpayer dollars would be owned by the university, not by the government, and all issues of patenting and development and licensing are the responsibility of the university.
As incentive to the professor leading the research, the university pays a generous fraction of the income from licensing directly to the professor as additional personal income. The relationship between VCU and Philip Morris and other companies is to be applauded, for it contributes real value to our society and it inspires students.
The owner of Papa Joe's Smoke Shop near Lynnhaven Mall is upset about city leaders raising the per-pack cigarette tax 22 percent, to 61 cents from 50 cents. The increase was included in the city budget approved last month, but that particular levy got little public attention.
Now that retailers know about it, they're not pleased. The National Association of Tobacco Outlets even weighed in, questioning how the city could raise the tax without directly informing affected businesses.
Weiner said he found out only after he got a letter telling him the new tax rate. The trade group has not said whether it would take any formal action to protest the increase.