{"id":3611,"date":"2015-11-13T02:55:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T02:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3611"},"modified":"2015-11-13T03:02:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T03:02:59","slug":"analysis-the-sickest-states-in-the-u-s-mostly-in-the-south-do-the-least-to-snuff-out-smoking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3611","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: The sickest states in the U.S., mostly in the South, do the least to snuff out smoking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"southern<\/a><\/p>\n

I already knew this, but I’m glad to see USA Today do a story on it.<\/p>\n

It’s a fact that the highest rates of lung cancer are in the Deep South — where there are few indoor smoking bans and cigarette taxes are ridiculously low.<\/p>\n

From the USA Today article:<\/a><\/p>\n

States hit hardest by the ravages of tobacco are often the least aggressive at hitting back, a USA TODAY analysis found.\u00a0So a deadly culture of smoking lingers, which officials\u00a0say is fueled relentlessly by tobacco companies targeting minorities and the poor.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Big tobacco-growing states such as Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia have the poorest and sickest residents, yet spend less than 20% of the federal government\u2019s recommended minimum for tobacco education and enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0States with the most smokers weaken\u00a0their own tobacco control efforts with cigarette taxes of 60 cents or less, compared with $3.75 in Rhode Island and $4.35 in New York.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Hard-hit states also do the least to restrict smoking in places such as restaurants and workplaces and impose penalties of $100 or less on businesses selling tobacco to children, compared with $10,000 in the most aggressive states.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I like to show this phenomena graphically. Here is a map of the states with the highest rates of lung cancer. Darker is bad:<\/p>\n

\"2006_lung_map_deaths\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Now, here is a map of the states with the lowest cigarette taxes. Red means low taxes:<\/p>\n

\"excise-taxes\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Now, here is a map with showing indoor smoking bans. White means total smoking bans, black means no statewide smoking bans (yellow means weak smoking bans).\"800px-US_states_smoking_bans.svg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Wow, it’s absolutely amazing<\/em> the correlation, isn’t it? Actually, it really is, I’m not trying to be snarky.<\/p>\n

Like I said, I’ve been aware of this correlation for some time, Now throw in the other factor of states in the Deep South spending little on tobacco education. Again, I’ve been aware of this for some time, the USA Today article speaks about how little states spend from the $280 billion Master Settlement Agreement on tobacco education, using that money instead to balance their state budgets (In USA Today’s word — “fix potholes.”).<\/p>\n

Also, not a coincidence. Where is most of the tobacco in the U.S. grown? In the Deep South.<\/p>\n

From USA Today:<\/p>\n

Critics say one reason some states aren\u2019t very aggressive is that tobacco is woven tightly into their communities even as the number of tobacco farms continues to shrink.\u00a0\u201cYou can look at a map of tobacco control policies and see that every state that has weaker policies is a tobacco-growing state,\u201d says Yvonne Hunt, who heads the tobacco control research branch of the National Cancer Institute.<\/p>\n

Sitting in a cancer education booth at a free health clinic in southwest Virginia this summer, pharmacy student Anesa Hughes tried to explain why smoking is so common in her area. It\u2019s \u201csuch a cultural thing,\u201d says Hughes, who walked behind a tiller on her family\u2019s tobacco farm starting at age 8. \u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019re in a time warp.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a self-destructive culture. A mentality that “tobacco has always been a part of our culture.” Well, so has racism … does that somehow make it a good thing? These states have the highest smoking rates — Kentucky and West Virginia have been the highest for a while now, and places like Alabama and Mississippi aren’t far behind. People literally killing themselves and stubbornly clinging to the idea that somehow the right to kill themselves correlates to “Liberty,” or something… because their cigarette taxes are low and they can light up pretty much anywhere they want, especially outside the big cities. It’s a frustrating, exasperating reality. “Maybe I’m killing myself, but ain’t no Obama telling me what to do…” or some such thing.<\/p>\n

As an aside, most of these Southern states also lead the U.S. in rates of diabetes. Part of that is smoking, it’s now known that smoking is a factor in causing diabetes, part of it is poor diet, obesity, lack of health care, high rates of poverty, etc. The sickest part of the country … which does little or nothing about it. And the people there keep voting for the people who do little or nothing about it.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I already knew this, but I’m glad to see USA Today do a story on it. It’s a fact that the highest rates of lung cancer are in the Deep South — where there are few indoor smoking bans and cigarette taxes are ridiculously low. From the USA Today article: States hit hardest by the … Continue reading Analysis: The sickest states in the U.S., mostly in the South, do the least to snuff out smoking<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[382,60,337],"tags":[385,176],"class_list":["post-3611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cigarette-taxes","category-smoking-bans-2","category-smoking-rate","tag-cigarette-taxes-2","tag-smoking-bans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/2006_lung_map_deaths.jpg?fit=443%2C302&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-Wf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4106,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=4106","url_meta":{"origin":3611,"position":0},"title":"“Tobacco Nation” being left behind","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"November 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a really good story from U.S. News and World Report about how the smoking rate in the U.S. has dropped dramatically through much of the country ... except for one region. And that's this funky swath from the Upper Midwest, beginning in West Virginia and then into the Deep\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cigarette taxes"","block_context":{"text":"Cigarette taxes","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=382"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/smoking-map.jpg?fit=859%2C627&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/smoking-map.jpg?fit=859%2C627&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/smoking-map.jpg?fit=859%2C627&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/smoking-map.jpg?fit=859%2C627&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2024,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2024","url_meta":{"origin":3611,"position":1},"title":"A smoking ban in the Deep South — Georgia bans smoking on college campuses","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"March 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Normally, a story like this wouldn't really get on my radar, but then I remembered this is Georgia, buried well into the Deep South. I haven't written much about smoking bans in the last couple of years, mostly because not a lot has been happening on that front. Places that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Smoking bans"","block_context":{"text":"Smoking bans","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=60"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/georgia.jpg?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":472,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=472","url_meta":{"origin":3611,"position":2},"title":"CNBC’s Cigarette Wars — “It’s still a legal product”","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"March 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"What I was struck by in the CNBC documentary \"Cigarette Wars\" was how a pair of tobacco farmers, when asked, \"how do you feel about growing a deadly product?\" just kept repeating the mantra, \"it's still a legal product.\" http:\/\/youtu.be\/brYirnEKsh4 \"Not everyone dies from smoking,\" Tobacco farmer Todd Clark says,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anti-tobacco campaign"","block_context":{"text":"Anti-tobacco campaign","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/cigarette-wars.jpg?fit=960%2C320&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/cigarette-wars.jpg?fit=960%2C320&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/cigarette-wars.jpg?fit=960%2C320&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/cigarette-wars.jpg?fit=960%2C320&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3505,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3505","url_meta":{"origin":3611,"position":3},"title":"Clemson University, in the Deep South, bans tobacco products on campus","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"September 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Great news from South Carolina. Clemson, the heart of tobacco country, recently announced that all tobacco products are banned on campus. The ban includes chew and e-cigarettes. Many colleges and universities now ban tobacco products, even in deep red states like South Carolina, which have low taxes on cigarettes and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Smoking bans"","block_context":{"text":"Smoking bans","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=60"},"img":{"alt_text":"clemson","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/clemson.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2474,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2474","url_meta":{"origin":3611,"position":4},"title":"Smoking rate in New York City goes up","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"September 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Weird story and a little troubling, one that goes against the national trend. Recent data shows that the smoking rate in New York City -- yes, rabidly anti-smoking New York City, has actually went\u00a0up\u00a0from 2010, and not by a tiny amount\u00a0Officials are blaming budget cuts to education for the rise\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Michael Bloomberg"","block_context":{"text":"Michael Bloomberg","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=292"},"img":{"alt_text":"new york city","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/new-york-city-200x149.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":20,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=20","url_meta":{"origin":3611,"position":5},"title":"South Dakota approves smoking ban; the South remains the ashtray of the United States","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"December 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"First on the docket is a month-old story from South Dakota (we gots some catching up to do). In South Dakota, the State Legislature passed a smoking ban a couple of years ago. Bar and casino owners passed around a petition to put the issue to a public vote. 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