EDITORIAL: State anti-smoking efforts have saved lives

Oct. 20--The decadeslong effort by California to discourage tobacco use is paying amazing dividends in lives saved. A recent study published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research found that lung cancer rates in California are 28 percent lower than the national average -- a gap that widens every year.

A voter initiative passed in 1988 established a comprehensive statewide tobacco control program that has been extraordinarily successful in discouraging young people from ever picking up smoking, reducing the number of cigarettes consumed by those who do smoke and encouraging smokers to quit.

John P. Pierce, a professor emeritus of cancer prevention at UC San Diego's School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center and the lead author of the study, said the tobacco control program clearly worked.

"What we saw is that among people under 35 years old, the combination of a 39 percent lower initiation rate, 30 percent lower consumption of cigarettes among those who did smoke, and a 24 percent higher early quit rate meant that young Californians now have much less exposure to cigarette smoking than those of similar age in the rest of the country," Pierce said.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only Utah has a lower smoking rate than California.

In 1985, lung cancer was killing Californians older than 35 at a rate of 108 per 100,000. By 2013, that rate had declined to 62.6. Those statistics translate to tens of thousands of lives saved over the years.

This is undeniably good news -- and strong evidence that other states should use California's approach as a model. But California shouldn't rest on its laurels. Thankfully, it appears the Tobacco Control Program is making every effort to build on its successes.

The agency has targeted flavored e-cigarettes that can help ease teens into tobacco use and launched a campaign this summer to convince older social smokers that they're at high risk of becoming regular smokers.

Finding new ways of encouraging adult smokers to quit is important. "Quitting smoking at any age will improve a person's quality of life," said Pierce. "But quitting before the age of 35 could help smokers avoid nearly all the negative health effects of smoking. Quitting by age 50 could reduce a person's risk of disease by almost half."

The California Tobacco Control Program is an undeniable success. The longest-running statewide program in the nation has helped convince teens that starting to smoke is a bad idea. It's helped adult smokers find the means to overcome their addiction to nicotine.

More important, perhaps, has been the effort to reduce the social acceptability of tobacco use, especially in places where it leads to secondhand exposure of nonsmokers. The program has run thought-provoking statewide campaigns to counter Big Tobacco's massive marketing efforts.

Tobacco is the No. 1 cause of premature deaths in the United States. Though Big Tobacco has taken quite a beating in recent years, it is still working hard to hook new generations of customers.

California was a pioneer in tobacco prevention programs -- and that early effort has saved many, many lives. This successful strategy should continue full bore, and other states should do their best to emulate it.

You can send a letter to the editor at letters@pressdemocrat.com

___

(c)2018 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.)

Visit The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.) at www.pressdemocrat.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.