Tobacco continues to be top killer
Report says smoking still a leading cause of death in United States
By Kenadal Kelly
Oklahoma Daily (U. Oklahama)

(U-WIRE) NORMAN, Okla.—Cigarette smoking continues to be a leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s April 12, 2002 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The report said that from 1995-1999, smoking killed more than 440,000 people in the United States each year.

Tobacco kills more people than AIDS, murder, suicide, fires, alcohol and all illegal drugs combined, according to another CDC Morbidity and Mortality report from May 23, 1997.

In Oklahoma, 34.8 percent of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 are current smokers, according to a 2001 Oklahoma Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey.

The same survey also revealed that 8.1 percent of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 are former smokers, and 57.2 percent have never smoked.

Chief of Tobacco Use Prevention Services Doug Matheny said one of the main reasons young people start smoking is due to the positive image of tobacco products that has been created over the years as a result of the industry’s billions of dollars of advertising.

“The only new customers come from young people,” Matheny said.

He said the highly advertised cigarette brand Marlboro was made to appeal to young people.

“Seventy-five percent of high school students in Oklahoma who smoke, smoke Marlboro,” Matheny said. “Only 35 percent of adult smokers smoke Marlboro.”

College freshman Paige Beasley agrees that advertisements by tobacco companies influence young people.

“I think advertising is very powerful, and when you see stuff everywhere, whether you admit it or not, it influences you,” she said.

Along with advertising their products to youth, tobacco companies know that 70 percent of smokers want to quit, but can’t, according to the CDC’s website on tobacco use.

Tobacco companies also know that of the smokers who try to quit, only about 3 percent succeed, according to the Dec. 23, 1994 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Beasley is one of the scant few who managed to quit.

“I started smoking when I was like 17 and I quit before I turned 19,” she said.

Beasley said she started smoking initially because it was a social activity, but it soon became a stress release.

“I didn’t like the way it smelled and I was getting sick, getting colds all the time, and I didn’t like the way it made my voice scratchy,” Beasley said. “So I just stopped. It wasn’t easy.”

College freshman Travis Spain has not been able to quit smoking yet, but said he wished he could quit.

“I really need to,” Spain said. “I know it’s bad for me ... but it’s a lot more difficult to quit than putting them down and not picking them up again.”

Spain said he started smoking at the age of 15 or 16.

“I really don’t know [why],” Spain said. “Everyone in my family smokes and all my friends smoke so I’ve been around it forever.”

However, damage done by smoking is not limited to just the smoker.

A 1992 study by the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development found that secondhand smoke is responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths per year among nonsmokers.

College freshman Amber Brooks said she suffers from asthma now because her stepfather smoked when she was little.

“My asthma was a lot worse when he did smoke, but when he quit it got a lot better,” Brooks said.

Along with lung cancer deaths, smoking during pregnancy resulted in an estimated 599 male and 408 female infant deaths annually, according to an April 12, 2002 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

And not only is tobacco deadly, but it is also costly to the economy.

The economic costs of smoking are estimated to be about $3,391 per smoker per year, according to the April 12, 2002, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The same report also said that for each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States, the nation pays an estimated $7.18 in medical care costs and lost productivity.

Along with costing the government, individual smokers also pay a price in insurance costs.

For a level-term 30-year $100,000 life insurance policy, it would cost a healthy nonsmoking 30-year-old male $137 per year, said Jack Pinion, an insurance agent at Allied Insurance in Norman, Okla. Pinion said for a man of the same age who smokes, the cost would be $340 per year.

“They think the mortality rate is higher for smokers than nonsmokers,” Pinion said. “They die quicker.”

Kim Cobble, an insurance agent at Shelter insurance, said one of the biggest factors when giving quotes on insurance is if the client smokes or not.

“Smoking is going to cost more because we don’t expect you to live as long,” Cobble said. “Your [price is] going to be raised up for being a smoker.”

Even though smoking kills so many people and costs the government such a large amount of money, Matheny said smoking will never be made illegal.

“No one is proposing prohibition because it doesn’t work,” Matheny said. “They’ve had that experience with alcohol and it didn’t work.”

Matheny also said an estimated 50 million Americans are currently addicted to tobacco and that the goal of Tobacco Use and Prevention Services is “to do what works,”—which includes eliminating smoking in work and public places; greatly increasing the price of cigarettes by raising the excise tax; eliminating positive imagery surrounding cigarettes that the media has created and providing help to everyone who wants to quit smoking.