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WANDA HAMILTON
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Anti-Tobacco Doubletalk on Smoking
Rates:
Or Who's Smoking What?
Date of original release: 2/25/00 |
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In a widely-circulated November 7, l999 anti-tobacco e-mail
exchange, California's Stanton Glantz and Massachusetts' Richard Daynard complained about
adult and teen smoking rates increasing despite all the heavily-funded state and national
anti-tobacco efforts.
Glantz: "The recent CDC statistics showing that smoking has not
dropped in the l990s and that young adult smoking is way up is one more importanty [sic]
piece of evidence that the youth focus of the last ten years has been a mistake."
Daynard: "...it would seem that much of the rise in smoking in this
cohort was a 'pediatric problem.' Of course, even if that's true we obviously didn't do
very well with this pediatric problem--they're smoking in droves as young adults!"
And yet both California and Massachusetts claim their heavily-funded anti-tobacco programs
are working, especially with youths, and these programs are held up as model programs to
all other states.
So are smoking rates, particularly youth smoking rates, going down in California and
Massachusetts or not? Well, that apparently depends on whether it's beneficial for the
anti-tobacco workers to say they're up or beneficial to say they're down, depending on the
funding and legislation of the moment.
California
Despite a 25% increase in smoking rates in California
between l992 and l997, and despite an estimate by Bonnie Mapes, manager of Shasta County's
(CA) tobacco education program, that 23.6 percent of the county's adults smoke, Mapes
said, "We don't have more smokers here than we used to, we have fewer. It's just a
matter of perception. The trend has been down for years" ["A smoky
problem," Jim Schultz, Redding CA Record Searchlight, 12/7/97].
According to Centers for Disease Control & Prevention figures, adult smoking rates in
California have continued to increase from a low of 15.5% in l995 to l8.4% in l997 to
19.2% in l998. This trend in California is in direct opposition to adult smoking rates
nationally, which during the same period held steady or even dropped slightly.
The jump in adult smoking rates in l997 alarmed anti-tobacco officials--except those who
like Bonnie Mapes said it just wasn't true:
* William Wright, a researcher for the state Department of Health Services: "Clearly,
smoking has stopped its decline in California." Wright "predicted that the rise
would continue for at least another six months to a year and possibly longer"
["Adult Smoking Rises Sharply in California," Dan Morain, L.A. Times, 3/26/97].
* Jennie Cook, chairwoman of the state's Tobacco Education and Research Committee which
oversees the state's anti-tobacco efforts funded by Prop 99: "We knew we weren't
doing well. We didn't think we were doing this badly" [Morain, 3/26/97]
* Elizabeth Gilpin of UC San Diego's tobacco research center in response to a survey she
helped conduct which indicated that the number of teenagers who were
"susceptible" to smoking increased from 25-30% in l993 to 45% in l996:
"We're losing it now. It almost makes me want to cry " [Morain, 3/26/97]
* Alan C. Henderson, president elect of the American Cancer Society of California:
"This is an embarrassment to the state that has been the leader in fighting
tobacco," [Morain, 3/26/97].
One can only wonder at how these diligent anti-tobacco campaigners must have felt when
state smoking rates rose yet again in l998. Well, at least California has been a leader in
spending money to fight tobacco, though the resulting steady rises in adult and teen
smoking leave a lot to be desired.
Recent California county surveys raise the troubling prospect that underage smoking rates
might even be higher than CDC surveys show:
* A l997 San Diego Youth Risk Behavior survey, which was released in l998 indicated that
one out of every four (25%) teens reported that they smoke cigarettes ["Students
drinking, smoking a bit more," Steve Schmidt, San Diego Union Tribune, 2/25/98].
* A l997 San Mateo County survey found that 40% of male and 41% of female high school
seniors in the country smoked ["Teen Smoking, Obesity Rise in San Mateo County, High
levels alarm chief health official," Julie N. Lynem, San Francisco Chronicle,
10/7/98]
* A Santa Clara County Public Health Department report released 9/20/99 stated that 22% of
seventh and eighth graders reported having smoked a cigarette before age 13 ["Study
Warns of Teens' Risky Behavior: Santa Clara youth involved in drugs, sex at younger
age," Julie N. Lynem, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/21/99].
All the above adds up to a pretty dismal picture for California's expensive anti-tobacco
program it would seem. Nevertheless, less than three weeks before Californians vote on
whether to rescind Prop 10, which increased the state's tobacco tax by 50 cents a pack,
the panel of anti-tobacco workers who oversee the state program released a report touting
its success.
Though panel chair Jennie Cook bemoaned the failures of the state program in March of
l997, in February 2000 she said: "When Californians passed Proposition 99, a
revolution was born." And panel member David Burns of UC San Diego claimed that the
data shows that fewer Californians are still smoking, even though his UCSD colleague
Elizabeth Gilpin was ready to weep over the program's failures in l997 ["The profound
impact of Proposition 99," James P. Sweeney, Copley News Service, 2/17/00].
Of course, the panel is now angling for an additional $105 million a year from the state's
share of the national tobacco settlement, so perhaps that's a factor in boldly claiming
victory just now in spite of years of apparent failure.
Massachusetts
Apparently Massachusetts has so many surveys of youth
smoking and so many political spins on those surveys that no one can get it straight.
In August of l999, Massachusetts Congressman Marty Meehan, who was touting his proposed
U.S. House bill to stop internet cigarette sales to the underaged, claimed that a recent
Centers for Disease Control report found that 70 percent of Massachusetts high school
students experimented with smoking and that 34 percent of them are regular smokers
["Meehan, AG Reilly take steps to zap online tobacco sales," Boston Herald,
8/24/99].
In November of l999, the Massachusetts Department of Education claimed that its survey
found that cigarette smoking among state high school students had dropped from a high of
35.7 percent in l995 to 30.3 percent in l999 ["Massachusetts Survey: Smoking down
among teens," Boston Globe, 11/24/99].
"Tobacco Use Among Massachusetts Youth: Is Tobacco Control Working?" a study
funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bureau of Substance Abuse
Services and the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program and presented to the Society for
Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in l999 (SRNT abstracts, l999) found that smoking rates
had declined significantly among 7th and 8th grade males but not among 7th and 8th grade
girls and that, in fact, current smoking by girls in 7th and 8th grade had "exhibited
a nonsignificant increase." It also found that students in grades 9 through 12
"exhibited nonsignificant increases in Current Smoking."
A l995 Massachusetts Department of Education survey found that 10 percent more teens
smoked regularly in l995 than in l993 before the state's $75 million-a-year program to
reduce underage smoking was initiated in l994. The survey found that 35.7% of the state's
students smoked cigarettes and that from l990 to l995 there was a statistically
significant increase in the percentage of students who smoked in the past month (from
28.9% in l990 to 37.0% in l995.
A l996 Massachusetts Department of Education survey found that smoking rates for male high
school students increased from 31% in l993 to 35% in l996.
Very confusing. One thing is clear: Whether 70% of Massachusetts kids smoked in a recent
survey, as Rep. Meehan claimed in August of l999 or whether only 30.3% of them did, as the
Massachusetts Department of Education survey claimed in November of l999, there are more
kids smoking in Massachusetts in l999 than in l990, four years before Massachusetts began
taxing smokers to pay for a $75 million-a-year program to keep kids from smoking.
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