Social justice in the realm of public health calls for agencies and community members to unite and work toward improving health outcomes. The tobacco industry in America generates such a high revenue, creating less incentive for politicians and government officials to make prevention and cessation a priority. To bring about social justice surrounding tobacco use, it is the responsibility of public health professionals to provide preventative education and critical warnings to kids before they are tempted to begin smoking.
Luckily, there are health agencies compensating for the absence of political and governmental action on smoking prevention. “In 2010, the Prevention and Public Health Fund awarded $15 million to states and communities to stimulate the delivery of evidence-based tobacco control programs and policies” (Health Reform and Healthy People Initiative, 2012). This fact alone may seem like prevention is on the rise. However, upon examination of expenses for cigarette advertisements in 2011, figures estimate a total of $8.37 billion, in the United States alone (CDC, 2011). “If all tobacco industry advertising and promotional activities were banned for the next 25 years, nearly 60,000 smoking-attributable deaths per year could be avoided, saving nearly 900,000 life-years, $2.6 billion in excess medical expenses, and between $28 billion and $43 billion in mortality costs.” (NIH, 1999).
Preventative measures must go beyond simply prohibiting access to minors. Focusing on exposing people to the plethora of smoking related diseases, visible damage to the body’s organs, and the devastating effects on friends and family has a much more profound effect than simply forbidding purchase for minors. The question has historically been, which approach will prove to have the greatest impact on reducing smokers and deterring future generations from lighting up? Recent findings suggest raising the age may not be an effective strategy to combat the prevalence of smoking. Sarah Perl, an assistant health commissioner under Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, testified classifying smoking as an adult activity would just make it more enticing to teenagers. “Youth access laws, such as raising the legal purchase age, are among the activities endorsed by the tobacco industry,” Ms. Perl said. She said there was little evidence that raising the smoking age had reduced cigarette use among teenagers (Hartocollis, 2013). Therefore, money or time should not be invested solely in raising purchasing age, as currently being enacted in New York, as minors seeking cigarettes will find a way to acquire them.
In Australia, the drinking age is 18 and the US, 21. In both countries, kids frequently engage in binge drinking at earlier ages due to the allure of it being forbidden. Often, the binge drinking occurs as minors are not taught how to properly consume alcohol, in contrast to some cultures known for introducing wine at the dinner table. In France, for example, “Children begin to drink wine during family dinners in their early teens, often drinking wine diluted with water” (France, 2010).
The health effects of smoking, regardless of age, all result in much higher risk of developing smoking associated diseases. By teaching disease prevention and educating on the devastating effects of smoking at an early age, kids will see smoking as less of a forbidden adult luxury and more of a nasty addiction.
Agencies such as the American Lung Association can look for inspiration for education and examples to achieve prevention goals by looking at countries with statistics of lower disease rates resulting from less prevalence of smoking. Health agencies aiming to prevent and lessen smoking rates can build off of others’ models with great success by studying which advertisements and campaigns had the most profound effect over their duration. For example, printing graphic photographs of smoking related diseases on the packaging has proved successful for many anti-smoking campaigns in Australia.
Other measures to lessen the act of smoking for the entire population include:
- Increasing the price and tax on smoking and alcohol
- Anti-smoking TV adverts and poster advertisements by government
- Limit areas of smoking, 30 feet from restaurants, schools, childcare, shops, bus stops – and now the new restriction of smoking in jail in Australia.
Scary facts on smoking: Recently new information to the media:
- "Smoking and secondhand smoke kill more people than AIDS, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, car crashes, murders, suicides, and fires combined.
- One in three adolescents who are "just experimenting" end up being addicted by the time they are 20 years old.
- Cigarettes contain over 4,000 chemicals and 2,000 poisons – including toxins found in nail polish remover, rat poisoning, battery acid, insecticides, and rocket fuel.
- Nicotine, the main chemical in tobacco, is highly addictive; it is just as addictive as heroin or cocaine.
- Cigarette use causes premature death; on average, smokers die 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.
- Secondhand smokers are also at risk. On average, secondhand smoke causes 3,400 deaths from lung cancer; 46,000 deaths from heart disease.
- Smoking causes birth defects when pregnant women are exposed to it (firsthand or secondhand smoke). Some birth defects may be premature birth, asthma, and cleft lip
- Among adults who smoke, 68 percent began smoking regularly at age 18 or younger, and 85 percent started when they were 21 or younger.
- The average age of daily smoking initiation for new smokers in 2008 was 20.1 years, among those 12-49 years old.
- Every day, almost 3,900 children under 18 years of age try their first cigarette, and more than 950 of them will become new, regular daily smokers. Half of them will ultimately die from their habit.
- People who begin smoking at an early age are more likely to develop a severe addiction to nicotine than those who start at a later age. Of adolescents who have smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime, most of them report that they would like to quit, but are not able to do so."
No comments:
Post a Comment