Top 10 states that are addicted to smoking

Antismoking efforts are hard to avoid nowadays. Cigarette packaging got graphic new warning labels in 2012 (though they'll soon be replaced thanks to a big-tobacco lawsuit), and 38 states have at least some restrictions as to where a person can light up. (New York State has even banned smoking in public parks.) But despite this increased regulation, plenty of Americans continue to smoke—like chimneys.
Using government data on smoking (and quit rates) rates, smoking bans and restrictions, cigarette taxes and sales, and deaths attributable to smoking, Health.com identified the 10 states where people are most likely to literally smoke themselves to death. Here they are, in alphabetical order.
Alabama
The Heart of Dixie has one of the highest youth smoking rates in America. The CDC reports that in 2011, nearly 23% of kids in grades 9-12 were smokers. To curb this alarming trend, several colleges have restricted tobacco use on campus, including Troy University, Miles College, and Auburn University.
Smoking culture continues off college campuses, however. Residents are still allowed to light up in workplaces, restaurants, and bars, and cigarette taxes are among the lowest in the nation.
Arkansas
Roughly 27 percent of adults in Arkansas smoke (compared to just over 20 percent nationwide), and in the most recent government surveys, less than 3% of smokers had managed to quit within the previous 12 months.
The tobacco smoke hangs so thick over the Natural State that Governor Mike Beebe has made secondhand smoke a statewide priority. In July 2011, for instance, a law went into effect prohibiting an adult from smoking in a car with children under the age of 14, broadening a 2006 law that banned smoking in the car with kids under 6. Only six other states—California, Louisiana, Illinois, Oregon, Utah, and Maine—have similar laws.
Kentucky
States, not just people, can be addicted to tobacco. Tobacco production is an important industry in Kentucky, which along with North Carolina generates two-thirds of the nation's tobacco harvest. (In 2012 Kentucky farmers grew about 150 million pounds.)
People aren't necessarily more likely to smoke if they live in a tobacco-growing state, but Kentuckians are certainly doing their part to help the local economy. The state has the nation's second-highest adult smoking rate, as well the highest rate of smoking-related deaths. Most alarming of all, Kentucky is encouraging more smokers: The smoking rate among high schoolers is the highest in the U.S.
Louisiana
Alcohol use and smoking are closely linked, so in a state known for its love of partying and drive-through liquor stores, it's not surprising that more than one in four Louisiana adults also smokes.
Like many people, Louisiana residents apparently love to light up when they have a drink in hand. Despite multiple attempts, State Senator Rob Marionneaux has been unable to win support for his proposed ban on smoking in Louisiana bars. The state currently prohibits smoking in restaurants, public buildings, and most work sites, but opponents worry the ban would hurt bars' profits.
Mississippi
Mississippi is one of only two states nationwide without any restrictions on smoking at child-care facilities. The state has banned smoking in government buildings and on college campuses, but proposals for a broader ruling haven't been met with much approval.
Supporters were looking to ban smoking in restaurants and nongovernment buildings, but the proposal fell apart in March of 2011. Opponents argued that the government shouldn't tell private businesses how to operate. But it may be even more simple: Some residents told local newscasters they wouldn't want to stop lighting up when they're out and about.
Missouri
The federal government slaps a $1.01 tax on every pack of cigarettes sold in the U.S., but taxes—and therefore prices—still vary widely from state to state. The average pack of cigarettes costs more than $10 in New York, thanks to the country's heftiest per-pack tax ($4.35)—three times higher than the national average. In Missouri, meanwhile, the average pack retails for just $4.50 because the state taxes a mere $0.17 per pack.
The Show-Me State is passing up a proven way to reduce smoking, especially among young people. A 10% price hike can reduce the amount of cigarettes consumed by about 4%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Oklahoma
The rates of smoking and smoking-related deaths in Oklahoma rank high nationally, and very few smokers are quitting. But there may be change on the horizon: In April 2013, a new state law gave communities local control over smoking in public parks and municipal facilities. The measure also banned use of all tobacco products in all state-owned buildings.
As the birthplace of the original Marlboro Man, Oklahoma has made a small but lasting contribution to the smoking scourge. Darrell Winfield, the child of farmers, was discovered by Marlboro in 1968 and was featured in the majority of the brand's advertisements over the next two decades.
South Carolina
South Carolina has the nation's lowest smoking-cessation rate. In the most recent government survey, only about 2 percent of smokers had successfully quit for at least a year (compared to a high of 7% in Vermont), which isn't surprising given that South Carolina has a measly $0.57 cigarette tax and no smoking restrictions in restaurants, bars, private work sites, and retail stores.
These factors can discourage quitting. Fewer than 1 in 10 smokers successfully kick the habit without medicine or other aids. Roadblocks to quitting can include cravings, nicotine withdrawal symptoms, weight gain, depression, lack of support, stress, alcohol, and living with a smoker.
Tennessee
The Great Smoky Mountains couldn't have a better home. Although Tennessee's smoking rate isn't exceptionally high by national standards, the Volunteer State ranks among the worst in the number of packs sold per capita and the rate of smoking-related deaths. And in 2007, state spending for smoking cessation and other control programs was the third lowest, at only 3 percent of the CDC's recommended amount.
As in many southern states, tobacco is a lucrative crop in Tennessee. Twenty-one states produce tobacco in the U.S., and many farmers depend on it to make a living, despite growing additional crops.

CDC: Evocative Campaign Motivates Smokers to Quit

The Tips from Former Smokers television campaign, which features true stories of former smokers living with the unfortunate consequences of their past habit, appears to motivate smokers to seek information through quitlines and the Internet, according to a report published in the Sept. 20 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
THURSDAY, Sept. 19 (HealthDay News) -- The Tips from Former Smokers (Tips) television campaign, which features true stories of former smokers living with the unfortunate consequences of their past habit, appears to motivate smokers to seek information through quitlines and the Internet, according to a report published in the Sept. 20 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
In an effort to assess the Tips campaign's impact, Stephen Babb, M.P.H., of the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues analyzed the number of weekly calls to the national telephone quitline and the number of weekly new visitors to the Tips website during the four weeks prior to the campaign, the 16 weeks of the campaign's duration, and the four weeks that followed.
Calls and website visits increased by 75 percent during the campaign and quickly fell to almost pre-campaign levels afterward. The researchers surmised that the campaign inspired an additional 151,536 callers and nearly 2.8 million unique web visitors above non-campaign levels. Furthermore, weekly call volumes fluctuated wildly, falling 38 percent during the six weeks when televised ads did not run.
"These results suggest that emotionally evocative tobacco education media campaigns featuring graphic images of the health effects of smoking can increase quitline calls and website visits and that these campaigns' effects decrease rapidly once they are discontinued," the authors write.

Fort Collins smoking ban could extend outdoors

Lighting up a cigarette in public might soon become even less welcome in Fort Collins.
City officials are considering expanding no-smoking rules to include outdoor dining areas and bar patios.
Smoking also would be prohibited within 20 feet of an outdoor dining area under the proposed regulation, and banned at Transfort bus benches and other transit facilities, such as MAX stations.
During a recent City Council work session on the proposal, most council members said they support applying the smoking ban to outdoor eating areas. They also would consider regulating electronic cigarettes and banning smoking in parks, on trails and in heavily used pedestrian areas such as Old Town Square.
Mayor pro tem Gerry Horak said many people don’t want to be around cigarette smoke, even in an outdoor setting.
“I think the society has changed,” he said. “The society here in town is ready for it.”

Smokers earn 20% less than non-smokers...

Smokers earn 20 per cent less than non-smokers, new research has revealed.
However, people who used to smoke but who gave up more than a year ago earn an average of seven per cent more than those who never smoked.
Economists Julie Hotchkiss and Melinda Pitts, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, also discovered that the wages of social smokers and people who smoke a pack a day are equally badly affected by their habit.
Therefore, NBC News reports that it is the fact that a person smokes, rather than how much they smoke, that is important.
The economists also found that levels of productivity are not the cause of the pay gap – their research showed that people who smoke heavily are no less productive than people who do not smoke at all.
They suggest that the main reason for the pay gap is that non-smokers tend to be more highly educated than smokers. Cigarette News Online.
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Licence for smokers

SMOKERS should be made to carry a smart card to buy cigarettes, cancer experts say. In a move backed by Tasmania's Cancer Council, two academics are pushing for the card in a bid to reduce smoking rates. Roger Magnusson, of the University of Sydney's Law School, and David Currow, of the Cancer Institute NSW, say it would cut teenage smoking rates. Retailers would have to check the smart card licence to verify every pack sold is bought by an adult, the authors write in today's Medical Journal of Australia. Professor Magnusson and Professor Currow say the card could collect data smokers could use to help them quit. Cancer Council of Tasmania chief executive Penny Egan said yesterday any move that could reduce the state's high smoking rate was worth considering. Noting Tasmania had the country's highest smoking rate, Ms Egan said: "Quitting smoking is of the most important things an individual can do to reduce the risk of cancer." Tasmanian Health Minister Michelle O'Byrne is considering banning smoking for people born after 2000. A motion supporting the ban, based on an idea floated in the Mercury in May last year by Jon Berrick from the National University of Singapore, has passed the Upper House. Despite smoking being banned for those under 18, the 2010 National Drug Strategy Household Survey found 31 per cent of the tobacco smoked by adolescents was bought from retailers or online. More info about cigarettes click here.

Anti-smoking laws ‘unrealistic’

Cape Town - Township tavern owners have rejected the government’s latest anti-smoking regulations as unrealistic, including the ban on lighting up within 10m of building entrances.

“Ten metres from my place would be over the road and in somebody else’s yard,” says David Sawula, owner of Gugulethu’s popular Popza’s Place.

“A lot of the places in our township will face the same problem because of the density and overcrowding,” Sawula said.

The Health Department regulation states: “Pollution from tobacco smoke will be further reduced by restricting smoking in certain outdoor areas. Smoking will be moved away from entrances to buildings and smoking will be restricted in sports stadia, railway platforms, bus stops, alfresco dining areas, etc.”

 

Sawula, a member of the Township Liquor Industry Association (Tolia), said Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s attempt to push through the regulations would also lead to a loss of jobs.

Celebrity Activists Who Have Smoked Pot: Morgan Freeman, Oliver Stone And More

As the movement to legalize marijuana gains traction, some environmental activists and celebrities are throwing in their support for legalization, while others have simply admitted to using pot at some point in their lives.
Many celebrities and politicians have publicly come forward as either current or reformed pot smokers. There are some, like Paul McCartney, who have reportedly left those days behind them. At the age of 69, McCartney told Rolling Stone that he smoked his share already. "Enough's enough," he said. On the other end of the spectrum are those still rolling, like famous director Oliver Stone. “It can be done legally, safely, healthy,” Stone insisted in a recent Associated Press interview.