US: One in 9 Ohio Teens Smoke, Survey Finds

Source from:  Newark (OH) Advocate  11/19/2012

Ohio has the fifth-highest rate of adolescent smoking, despite making great reductions in the number of 12- to 17-year-olds who choose to light up, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Smoking causes more than 400,000 deaths every year. Preventing the next generation from smoking in the first place might be the best way to reduce the loss of life and financial burdens that smoking-related illnesses cause, said the authors of a report released this week.

In that regard, the nation has made great strides since 2002 and 2003, when 12.6 percent of respondents, or one in eight kids, ages 12 to 17 reported having smoked in the past month in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That percentage had slid to 8.7 percent by the time the numbers were crunched from the 2009 and 2010 surveys.

Ohio experienced its own precipitous fall during that same period, dropping from 14.5 percent to 11.2 percent. However, the decrease was not as sharp as the one experienced by the nation as a whole, which resulted in Ohio actually rising from having the 16th-highest teen smoking rate between 2002 and 2003 to the fifth highest in the 2009-10 period.

"It's not surprising that we have these numbers, that we're falling behind the country," said Shelly Kiser, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association in Ohio.

Kiser said Ohio abandoned much of its funding for cessation programs and is losing the marketing war to cigarette manufacturers.

"They're out there spending $1 million a day," she said. "It's hard to counteract that."

The most proven method to dissuade smoking across all age groups, according to an advocate at the American Cancer Society, is to raise the state tobacco tax, which was last raised to $1.25 per pack of cigarettes in July 2005.

"It's been proven that (raising the tobacco tax) creates a barrier to use and ultimately what that does, particularly among youth, is it decreases smoking rates," said Laura Weis, the society's program manager for advocacy communications in Michigan and Ohio.

The ACS says 99 percent of smokers start before they turn 26, so prevention is paramount. At home, parents who talk to their kids about the dangers of smoking double the odds they'll forgo tobacco.

For teens who already have developed a habit, parents should avoid threats and ultimatums to get them to quit, Weis said. If the parents are tobacco user, they should set a good example and quit.

"Parents are really the greatest influence in keeping their kids from smoking," she said. Enditem