Connecticut Doing Too Little | CigarettesBox.Com Tobacco News

Catalog

Connecticut Doing Too Little

Connecticut is doing a mediocre job at stopping smoking cigarettes, according to the American Lung Association.

The Nutmeg State earned a D+ average overall in the association’s annual State of buy cigarettes Control Survey for 2010.

Like many cash-strapped states across the country, Connecticut flunked the two spending-related categories focusing on smoking cigarettes prevention and smoking cigarettes cessation programs. The state fared better in the two legislative categories dealing with cigarette taxes and secondhand smoke cigarettes regulations.

The state’s $3 cigarette tax, among the highest nationwide, was praised as a deterrent to youth smoking cigarettes. But its grade in the smoke-free air category places it firmly in the bottom half of the country. The “C” comes from the state not having banned smoking cigarettes in businesses with fewer than six employees, said Ed Miller, the Lung Association’s
New England vice president for health promotion and public policy.

A bill to change that is pending in the Legislature.

The William W. Backus Hospital spokesman Shawn Mawhiney wasn’t surprised at the results. Backus conducted a phone survey of Eastern Connecticut adults’ smoking cigarettes habits last year and found that 40 percent of all respondents were regular smokers, and half said they smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lives, he said.

Costly habit

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses figures such as those to calculate that smoking cigarettes costs the state $2.5 billion a year, Miller said.

In contrast, the survey said, Connecticut spends $1.86 million a year — less than 1/100th of the economic cost and 4.2 percent of the CDC’s recommended $43.9 million — on anti-smoking cigarettes programs.

The state does not cover smoking cigarettes cessation medication and counseling for all Medicaid recipients, who smoke cigarettes at rates up to 60 percent higher than average, but covers such treatments for pregnant women, as is required by federal law.

“They’re missing out on a major opportunity to save money and improve health in the Medicaid population,” Miller said. “When a state like Connecticut is not expanding discount cigarettes treatments to all Medicaid program recipients, they’re basically leaving money on the table.”

When Massachusetts included medication and counseling for people trying to quit smoking cigarettes in its Medicaid plan, about 70,000 people tried to quit, and thousands succeeded. The smoking cigarettes rate among Medicaid patients in the state dropped from 38 to 28 percent, and hospitalizations for heart disease dropped too, he said.

While the state doesn’t spend enough on combating smoking cigarettes, the Department of Public Health does a good job with what funding it has, Miller said.

Teaching kids to quit

A state grant will allow health teacher Michelle Rawcliffe, of Woodstock Academy, to survey students on their smoking cigarettes habits to figure out the extent of the problem, and then be trained to help students quit.

“It’s a course, it’s not too long, and just gives them the skills to quit,” Rawcliffe said. “Now, if kids get caught with cigarettes, they get detentions, and it keeps adding up with the more they get caught. This will be an option where, if they’re staying after school anyway for detention, they can stay after school and take a course to learn to quit.”

Rawcliffe and two other faculty members were trained in the fall to offer the smoking cigarettes cessation course to adults — including faculty, parents and community members — as well, she said.

In Colchester, the Youth Services Bureau has plans to conduct a similar survey, Director Valerie Geato said.

“My gut feeling is that we still have too many kids smoking cigarettes,” she said. “At the heart of all our programs is providing kids with services that are designed to help them develop in a healthy way.”

Other cigarettes news and tobacco market events you can find at links bellow:

   • Cigarettes Online News

   • Discount Cigarettes & Tobacco News

   • Discount Cigarettes Tobacco News