Jump to full article: Stars & Stripes, 2009-07-01
Author: Travis J. Tritten , Stars and Stripes Online edition
Intro: A complete ban on tobacco in the military is needed but would likely take about 20 years, according to a new Institute of Medicine study commissioned by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.
The ban is possible if the DOD begins to "close the pipeline of new tobacco users entering the military" and slowly cuts off supplies of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, the Committee on Smoking Cessation in Military and Veteran Populations found in its study, which was released Friday.
The DOD and VA asked the institute for recommendations on how to deal with smoking among servicemembers.
The study gives a bleak account of the health and financial toll tobacco takes on the military, which has nearly twice the smoking rate of the civilian population.
More than 30 percent of servicemembers smoke or use tobacco, though smokeless tobacco use is less certain. Those people are more likely to drop out of basic training, have poor vision, leave the service within the first year, get sick and miss work, according to the study findings.
The 15-member committee of doctors and health care professionals said the best way to reduce the problem is to eliminate it through a phased-in tobacco ban across the services. . . .
The NIH researchers said many in the DOD have avoided pressuring smokers deployed to war zones to enter smoking cessation programs, and they had trouble finding DOD documentation on whether those smoking cessation programs were helping people quit.
“This does not inspire confidence that the programs are meeting the needs of military personnel and it prevents contributions from outside personnel on how the programs might be improved,” researchers wrote.
The cessation programs should be improved and even deployed servicemembers must be encouraged to quit tobacco by commanders, the committee recommended.
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