Canadian Pharmacy Highlights the Importance of Anti-Smoking Campaigns

Only a small percentage of the billions of dollars states take in from tobacco revenues goes to anti-smoking efforts, a new federal report finds. While an indirectly proportional billions of dollars as well go into the purchase of generic Advair since more and more people are engaged to smoke. 

"The findings were disheartening. Not investing the money in tobacco control programs is shortsighted and demonstrates a lack of knowledge in the return on investment for tobacco control programs," said Dan Jacobsen of the Center for Tobacco Control at North Shore-LIJ Health System in Great Neck, NY. 

"If states funded tobacco control programs at the CDC recommended level, I feel the results would be dramatic and realized sooner than expected," he added. "By providing proper funding to these programs it would help prevent tobacco-related death and disease and greatly reduce the health care cost associated with them." 

"The results of this analysis show an increasing gap between state investments in tobacco control and best practices recommendations," the researchers wrote. "Although all states derive revenues from cigarette excise taxes, few states have a statutory requirement requiring that a portion of these revenues be dedicated to tobacco control and prevention." This is to lessen the action to buy Advair among smokers experiencing lung diseases. 

"Instead, most cigarette tax revenues are being used for general purposes. In addition, although state cigarette excise taxes have increased nationally, the Institute of Medicine has noted that recent tax increases largely have come in response to shortfalls in state budgets rather than as initiatives to increase spending on tobacco control." 

Responding to the report, Dr. Donna Shelley, an associate professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine, said: "The tobacco control community has been advocating for years, unsuccessfully, to earmark even 5 cents for every dollar of tobacco tax collected, for implementing CDC recommended programs and policies. With tight budgets the problem has only gotten worse." 

"However, there is no better return on investment in terms of public health benefit than funding the full spectrum of policies, media and other tobacco control program components recommended by the CDC," she added. "New York State is a great example of what can be achieved when tobacco funding is maintained, albeit not at the CDC recommended levels. In New York we continue to see annual drops in smoking rates from 21.6 percent in 2003 to 15.5 percent in 2010." Canadian pharmacy is more than glad to see this drop since it is a manifestation of healthier living. 

Smoking, particularly of cigarettes, is by far the main contributor to lung cancer. Cigarette smoke contains over 60 known carcinogens, including radioisotopes from the radon decay sequence, nitrosamine, and benzopyrene. Additionally, nicotine appears to depress the immune response to malignant growths in exposed tissue. Across the developed world, 91% of lung cancer deaths in men during the year 2000 were attributed to smoking (71% for women). In the United States, smoking is estimated to account for 87% of lung cancer cases (90% in men and 85% in women). Among male smokers, the lifetime risk of developing lung cancer is 17.2%; among female smokers, the risk is 11.6%. This risk is significantly lower in nonsmokers: 1.3% in men and 1.4% in women.