A new national campaign to educate the public about the health dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke exposure has been launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
National ads, dubbed“Tips from a Former Smoker,” began airing on television March 19, 2012.
Besides increasing public awareness of the health dangers of smoking, the TV ads are designed to “help motivate smokers to quit, and encourage adults to actively protect their kids from secondhand smoke,” a HHS press statement said.
The new “hard-hitting” national campaign comes on the heels of a new report by the U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, detailing how widespread youth tobacco use is, the health consequences and the influences that lead to lighting up for the first time.
Today, nearly one-in-four high school seniors and one-in-three young adults under age 26 use tobacco products, according to the report. The report also lays out proven strategies that can prevent its use.
Perhaps most striking, the new report details the scientific evidence on the addictive nature of nicotine. Statistics show 90 percent of adults who use tobacco started as kids.
Tobacco, the leading cause of preventable and premature death, kills an estimated 443,000 Americans each year — 5 million globally. In the United States, cigarette smoking costs the nation $96 billion in direct medical costs and $97 billion in lost productivity annually, says HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
“In addition to the billions in medical costs and lost productivity, tobacco is enacting a heavy toll on young people ... Despite the well-known health risks, youth and adult smoking rates that had been dropping for many years have stalled. When this Administration took office, we decided that if these numbers were not changing, we had to do something. We accelerated our efforts to fight tobacco by helping Americans stop smoking and protecting young people from starting to smoke,” she said in the report.
American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) publically applauded the HHS campaign saying tobacco use “is an enormous public health problem” that causes “no fewer than 18 different cancers” as well as numerous other tobacco-related diseases and death.
“As a research community we are actively working to find better treatments for all types of cancer, but we know that tobacco use causes cancer and the best way to prevent people from dying from this terrible disease is simply to prevent them from using tobacco in the first place,” said Dr. Margaret Foti, AACR Chief Executive Officer.
The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies tobacco use as a “global epidemic” as smoking among adults in developing countries surpasses that of industrialized countries where prevalence of tobacco use has begun to decline. WHO projects that if left to its current trajectory, tobacco will kill 1 billion people worldwide in the next century.
“Tobacco is the only legal drug that kills many of its users when used exactly as intended by manufacturers,”says the new WHO Global Report, “Mortality attributable to tobacco".
WHO Chief Margaret Chan, speaking at a conference on tobacco and health in Singapore March 20, 2012, was much more direct.
“We have an enemy, a ruthless and devious enemy, to unite us,” Chan told delegates. “The enemy, the tobacco industry, has changed its face and its tactics. The wolf is no longer in sheep's clothing, and its teeth are bared,” reported the social news network, Rappler.
Smokers looking for quitting help may call toll-free, 1-800-QUITNOW.
Lynette Summerill is an award-winning writer and Scuba enthusiast living in San Diego, CA with her husband and two beach loving dogs. In addition to writing about cancer-related issues for EmpowHER, her work has been seen in newspapers and magazines around the world.
Sources and reader information:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2012. Access online at:
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/preventing-youth-tobacco-use/index.html
Kids and Smoking: A parent’s guide. Nemours. Accessed 20 March 20, 2012 online at:
http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/talk/smoking.html
WHO Global Report: Mortality attributable to tobacco. 2012. ISBN: 978 92 4 156443 4. Available for download online at: http://www.who.int/tobacco/publications/surveillance/rep_mortality_attibutable/en/index.html
Tobacco industry ‘a devious enemy’:WHO Chief. Rappler. Agence France-Presse. 20 March 2012. Accessed online at: http://www.rappler.com/business/2773-tobacco-industry-a-devious-enemy-who-chief
AACR Praises New HHS Tobacco Education Campaign. Tara Yates. 15 March 2012. AACR News Release. Access online at: http://www.aacr.org/home/public--media/aacr-press-releases.aspx?d=2698
Reviewed March 27, 2012
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith