Overview
CONCLUSION
The American Lung Association’s Commitment
For more than 100 years, the American Lung Association has been the lead organization working to prevent lung disease and promote lung health, including fighting illness and death caused by tobacco use. Unfortunately, lung disease death rates continue to increase while other leading causes of death have declined.
The American Lung Association was founded in 1904 to combat tuberculosis, decades before antibiotics made it a curable disease. In fighting tuberculosis, we learned that by harnessing political will and using the right advocacy tools, a horrible public health scourge could be tamed. With the same intent, the American Lung Association targeted tobacco use and was one of the first organizations to tell people about the dangers of smoking, even before the landmark Surgeon General’s Report on smoking in 1964. The American Lung Association’s smoking cessation program for adults, Freedom From Smoking®, is widely recognized as the gold standard of such programs and is available in a group clinic format, as a self-help manual, and free of charge online at www.ffsonline.org. The American Lung Association also provides free telephone counseling to help smokers quit at 1-800-LUNGUSA.
From successfully advocating for smokefree air laws to holding the tobacco industry accountable for its wrongdoing, the American Lung Association has been a leader in tobacco control advocacy on the international, national, state, and local levels. In addition, the American Lung Association was among the first to offer a proven effective teen smoking-cessation program, Not On Tobacco (N-O-T). N-O-T has been designated a Model Program by both the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Drug Prevention (OJJDP).
In addition, the American Lung Association is a leader in the battle against air pollution and its devastating impact on human health. More recently, the American Lung Association has taken the lead in responding to the dramatic increase in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Most COPD is caused by smoking and both asthma and COPD can be exacerbated by exposure to secondhand smoke. The American Lung Association’s commitment to tobacco control is stronger than ever. But there is a crucial difference in this fight: Tobacco, unlike tuberculosis, has a strong lobby supporting it.
The American Lung Association State of Tobacco Control 2006 is a call to action for national and state elected officials: Meet the challenge and enact strong tobacco control laws so that everyone in the United States can breathe easier.
To find out more about the American Lung Association, get help quitting smoking or learn more about lung health issues, call 1-800-LUNG-USA (1-800-586-4872) or log onto www.lungusa.org
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