The American Lung Association’s State of Tobacco Control Report 2007 is here and the results aren’t good.
According to the American Lung Association's annual "report card", California gets "A"s for its smoke-free air laws and reducing youth access to tobacco. But, the state is receiving failing grades in the areas of tobacco prevention and control spending and tobacco tax.
Coming in at just under $80,000,000 California is spending close to $90,000,000 under the Center for Disease Control best practice minimum.
Every year, smoking and smoking related illnesses take thousands of lives and cost us millions of dollars.
In 2006 alone, we lost nearly 38,000 Californians to smoking related illnesses and the total economic cost due to smoking was $15,210,112,000.
This impacts every Californian, not just smokers.
With numbers like this, why aren't the Legislature and Governor doing more to raise the tobacco tax and spending more on tobacco prevention programs that will prevent teens from starting to smoke and helping more smokers quit?
Let Governor Schwarzenegger and your legislators know that this is unacceptable. Take the time to send them an email urging them to increase the tobacco tax and invest funds in tobacco prevention and control in the upcoming legislative session. If they do, we can save lives.
To find out more about California's grades in the State of Tobacco Control Report, please click here. The American Lung Association's State of Tobacco Control Report 2007 is a national report card that analyzes state tobacco control laws in four areas: smokefree air, tobacco control funding, cigarette tax and youth access.
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