Some disturbing realities are clear as related to the news that Indiana still has one of the highest smoking rates among all the states, even as tobacco usage is at an all-time low percentage across the nation.
Among the most troubling aspects of tobacco usage is that many of those who suffer the ill effects of tobacco are those who aren’t choosing to use it. They are the unborn children of mothers who smoke. They are those who are in settings where secondhand smoke affects their health and well-being. Still another unfortunate reality is that too many youths and young adults, for whatever reasons, are choosing to use tobacco, unfazed by the number of associated deaths.
A Times-Mail story published Thursday calls attention to the fact that, according to some observers, funding for tobacco cessation programs versus the rate tobacco costs the state is not productive enough.
But, aside from the issues related to funding amounts and what could be accomplished if more money targeted efforts to help people quit smoking, it’s troubling that too many smokers aren’t recognizing a responsibility to others. That’s especially true with mothers who smoke. The unborn child who is exposed to the threats of smoking can’t remove himself or herself from the hazards. Smoking while pregnant puts babies at risk for myriad problems including lower intelligence, reduced lung function and low birth rate. Risks continue after birth because babies who live in a home with smokers are more at risk for developing asthma.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that, since 1964, about 2,500,000 nonsmokers have died from health problems caused by exposure to secondhand smoke.
It’s reported at www.no-smoke.org that a CDC “vital signs report” noted that nonsmokers’ exposure to secondhand smoke was reduced by half between 1999-2012, but one in four nonsmokers remain exposed. That’s a high number of people to be exposed to risks that could be prevented if those who smoke would show nonsmokers the potentially life-saving courtesy of smoking outside their presence.
As for the disturbing reality that too many young people are choosing to smoke, the solution can be found only in intensified efforts to hammer home some sobering related statistics and in striving to increase awareness of smoking’s hazards to reduce the number of related deaths. That number, according to www.tobaccofreekids.org is more than 11,000 every year in Indiana.
The fact is simple: Individual responsibility among smokers could significantly lower the threat to nonsmokers — and especially to unborn babies. It’s important for society to aggressively generate awareness about the harmful effects of smoking and to make sure complacency doesn’t prevail.