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	<title>ASH &#62; Action on Smoking &#38; Health &#187; Smoking Rates</title>
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		<title>States need to do more to reduce smoking, study says</title>
		<link>http://ash.org/states-need-to-do-more-to-reduce-smoking-study-says/</link>
		<comments>http://ash.org/states-need-to-do-more-to-reduce-smoking-study-says/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:31:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ash</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Related News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smoking Rates]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[State Smoking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[States]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tobacco Use]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Many U.S. state governments use little of the money they receive each year from tobacco taxes or legal settlements with cigarette makers to fund programs that could help people kick the habit or prevent them from becoming smokers, according to a new report released on Wednesday. Each year, more than $25 billion flows into coffers<a class="moretag" href="http://ash.org/states-need-to-do-more-to-reduce-smoking-study-says/">... Read the full article ></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Many U.S. state governments use little of the money they receive each year from tobacco taxes or legal settlements with cigarette makers to fund programs that could help people kick the habit or prevent them from becoming smokers, according to a new report released on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Each year, more than $25 billion flows into coffers in some states, both from state excise taxes on tobacco products and payments made under a 1998 landmark anti-smoking agreement with tobacco companies, the American Lung Association said in a report titled &#8220;State of Tobacco Control 2013.&#8221;</p>
<p>The association said in the 2013 fiscal year, states spent $462.5 million on smoking-prevention and other programs aimed at helping smokers quit, just over 10 percent of the recommended levels by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p>
<p>&#8220;States and federal policymakers must &#8230; step up to fund programs and enact polices proven to reduce tobacco use,&#8221; said Paul Billings, senior vice president of the American Lung Association.</p>
<p>Only two states &#8211; North Dakota and Alaska &#8211; spent amounts close to the CDC recommendations.</p>
<p>Some states use most of the money toward their general budgets, said Erika Sward, an American Lung Association assistant vice president.</p>
<p>In the report, the association graded states on their spending on efforts to reduce tobacco use, with 42 states earning an &#8220;F&#8221; because they failed to invest even 50 percent of the amount of the money recommended by the CDC on prevention programs.</p>
<p>In New York, home to the highest cigarette tax in the country at $4.35 per pack, the state spent around $41 million in the fiscal year 2013 on smoking-prevention programs out of $2.3 billion in revenue generated by the taxes, Sward said.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/01/17/us-states-need-to-do-more-to-reduce-smoking-study-says/" target="_blank">See this article at its original location&gt;</a></p>
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		<title>Who Smokes Most: A Surprising Map of Smoking Rates by Country</title>
		<link>http://ash.org/who-smokes-most-a-surprising-map-of-smoking-rates-by-country/</link>
		<comments>http://ash.org/who-smokes-most-a-surprising-map-of-smoking-rates-by-country/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:22:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ash</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Related News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Global News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Smoking Rates]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S. News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ash.org/?p=1736</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Nobody lights up like Eastern Europe, where average annual consumption can exceed 2,000 cigarettes per person. The very highest rate is in Serbia (2,861 cigarettes per person per year), according to data from 71 countries compiled by the World Lung Foundation and American Cancer Society. Fourth-place Russia, not far behind at 2,786 cigarettes per person<a class="moretag" href="http://ash.org/who-smokes-most-a-surprising-map-of-smoking-rates-by-country/">... Read the full article ></a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Nobody lights up like Eastern Europe, where average annual consumption can exceed 2,000 cigarettes per person. The very highest rate is in Serbia (2,861 cigarettes per person per year), according to data from 71 countries compiled by the World Lung Foundation and American Cancer Society. Fourth-place Russia, not far behind at 2,786 cigarettes per person per year, is now finally dealing with its smoking problem.</p>
<p>Proposed new restrictions in Russia — modeled after laws in Western countries that coincided with a drop in smoking rates — would limit cigarette advertising and public smoking in Russia, and more than double excise taxes on cigarretes. A <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443624204578058201182906048.html?mod=e2tw">Wall Street Journal article on the Kremlin’s campaign</a> details Russia’s cigarette problem, which costs 400,000 lives and $48.1 billion every year.</p>
<p>The international smoking <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443624204578058201182906048.html?mod=e2tw#articleTabs%3Dinteractive">data</a> is mapped out above. It’s a fascinating bit of comparative data, with some potentially surprising pieces of information:</p>
<p><strong>• The highest rates are all in Eastern Europe.</strong> The one Eastern European exception is Romania, which had similarly bleak numbers until it enacted <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/314/7093/1501.13">tough anti-smoking laws</a> in 1997.</p>
<p><strong>• The biggest smokers outside of Eastern Europe are South Koreans, Kazakhs, and Japanese</strong>, in that order. China’s smoking rate still lags behind Korea’s and Japan’s (1,711 cigarettes per person in China versus 1,958 in Korea and 1,841 in Japan), but China is the world’s largest overall consumer of cigarettes. As the country urbanizes and develops, don’t be shocked if they rise in the rankings.</p>
<p><strong>• A <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1759634/pdf/v007p00022.pdf">1998 study</a> of Russian smoking habits</strong> found a direct correlation between cigarette and alcohol consumption rates and a direct correlation between smoking and exposure to “Western influences,” such as Western tobacco companies marketing cigarettes as symbols of a “glamorous Western lifestyle.”</p>
<p><strong>• Americans rank right in the middle.</strong> The U.S. is ranked 34th in the available data, with about a thousand cigarettes consumed per person per year. We’re about tied with the Israelis, the Australians and the Irish.</p>
<p><strong>• In this data set, poorer countries tend to be healthier.</strong> Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have some of the lowest smoking rates in the world. Indians smoke only 96 cigarettes per year per person. Ethiopians only 46. If Americans smoked like that, cigarette companies would collapse overnight, but health-care costs would drop dramatically as well; direct health-care costs related to smoking in the United States are <a href="http://www.lung.org/stop-smoking/about-smoking/health-effects/smoking.html">estimated</a> at $96 billion per year.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/10/19/who-smokes-most-a-surprising-map-of-smoking-rates-by-country/" target="_blank">See this article at its original location&gt;</a></p>
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