See how your state rates...

[Snowflake]

2004 Report:

http://lungaction.org/reports/takeaction04.html

[Hebbie]

Not surprised to see that NJ scored a big fat "F".

Thanks -- I've already sent a letter!

[Elaine]

I do have to laugh a little. If you look at the billions of dollars spent on prevention/cessation (and it's way less than the CDC says is necessary) it seems it might be cheaper to just ban cigerettes--then spend some of those millions or billions on cessation measures for a few years and be done with it.

They can ban Viooxx but not tobacco?? Come on...

They can ban red dye but not tobacco?

It's ludicrous.

People should be writing to their Congressmen and women and getting tobacco to be controlled by the FDA--that would saye money and LIVES.

Pay those Virginia tobacco farmers to do something else with their time and land. Twiddle their thumbs for 50 grand a year, I don't care.

If you are following the current lawsuit against the cig manufacturers, it is criminal what they did and are doing.

SOmeone recently posted an article that talks a bout the how they are currently paying universities big money to try and "prove" there is no connection between cig and lc--

Check with your state universities and see if they are taking tobacco money.

It just seems logical to just ban them all together, doesn/t it??? (That is if t hey weren't a whole lot of people living off of the big money made on taxes and the sale of the product.) Hmmmmm

elaine

elaine

[lindseysmom]

Virginia is a tobacco state after all so I am not surprised to see that F either.

Thanks,

Dee

[Connie B]

Logic?? What does Logic have to do with GREED? That is what this is all about isn't it? GREED!!! WHO cares who lives or dies, it's the one with the most Toys that wins! It almost feels to me, that's what this world is coming too. Oh Lord it's hard to be humble.

[Fay A.]

It will be interesting to see how California fares in later polls. The Govenator has built himself a little enclosed "Smoking Room" on State Capital grounds so he can enjoy a cigar. It's an issue because little kids tour the Capital with school groups, and the area where Arnie smokes is easily visable to the kids. (NOT a good example) It's interesting to hear the every day folks talk about our Governor now that he is "terminating" much in the way of benefits they previously enjoyed.

I'm reminded of the old adage "Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it."

[SDianneB]

I'm not a legal expert by any means, and haven't kept up with all the litigation recently, but a few years ago, a friend of mine worked here in the AG's office, and told me that the reason a federal ban on tobacco by the FDA isn't done is because tobacco, in and of itself, isn't the problem. It's the additives that go into cigarettes, chewing tobacco, etc., that make it harmful, and not the tobacco itself. What, so far, had kept such a ban from being put into place was that if they banned tobacco, then why not baking soda, since it can be combined with other things and made to be something harmful?

Litigation in the states or even on a federal level is a different thing because it is a case built around evidence and the use of tobacco products -- not the tobacco.

Even if the US banned smoking, tobacco farmers would still have a lively overseas market, and there aren't many politicians who are ready to look their constituents in the face and tell them they have to stop growing tobacco and selling it to overseas buyers, thereby making money in an economy where many of these people wouldn't survive outside their farms. There is also the knowledge that a thriving underground market would exist for tobacco products, creating an entirely new type of crime and criminals.

So, even though it seems like a simple thing to just ban it and make it go away, there are a lot of other issues at play.

Things may have changed since then, but that's about what my friend told me when some of the state settlements were being paid out a few years back.

Di