One in Four Cancer Deaths Are Linked to Smoking

A new study from the American Cancer Society has confirmed what public health officials have known for a long time — smoking kills. Published in the Oct. 23, 2016 issue of JAMA, the study found that 29 percent of U.S. cancer deaths — 167,000 in 2014 — were directly linked to smoking. Smoking-related deaths in men were highest in Arkansas; among women they were highest in Kentucky.

Credit: ITV.com

Lung cancer is still the number one smoking-related cancer in both men and women and the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. However, smoking is also associated with throat, stomach, liver, colon, pancreas and kidney cancers, as well as leukemia.

Most of the 10 states with the highest death rates from smoking-related cancers were in the South, while the lowest rates were in the North and West. The most likely explanation for this disparity: the tobacco industry has successfully limited legislative initiatives to enforce indoor smoking bans or raise taxes on tobacco products in the southern tobacco-producing states.

According to Tobacco-Free Kids.org, every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes (typically implemented through a tax increase) reduces cigarette smoking by between 3 and 5 percent. Price increases are especially effective in decreasing cigarette consumption among men, blacks and low-income individuals, in whom smoking rates are still disproportionately high. Raising cigarette prices also correlates strongly with decreased smoking rates in kids.

Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death in U.S. women
(Credit: medscape.com)

As we approach the U.S. general election next month, four states– California, North Dakota, Missouri and Colorado — have initiatives on the ballot to increase taxes on tobacco products or cigarettes. Yet despite widespread public support, none of these is assured a win.

In California, for example, where the $0.87 tobacco tax ranks 35th nationwide, a group funded by tobacco giants R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris has spent over $30 million on defeating Proposition 56, which would increase the cost of cigarettes by $2 per pack. Dubbed No on 56: Stop the Special Interest Tax Grab, the group has sufficient funding to spend another $35 million on ads before November 8th.

In North Dakota, the same players have spent nearly $3 million to prevent that state from increasing it’s cigarette tax from $0.44 to $2.20 per pack and doubling the wholesale price of smokeless tobacco products, including liquid nicotine and electronic cigarettes.

It has been 52 years since Surgeon General Luther L. Terry issued the first public health warning on the dangers of cigarette smoke, linking it directly to lung cancer and chronic lung disease. We have made huge progress in curbing cigarette consumption since that time. Nevertheless, 40 million American men, women and children still smoke.

With so much human suffering on the line, it seems that raising the price of cigarettes should be an easy choice.

No one ever died because cigarettes cost too much.