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(AP)--Anti-smoking advocates say they fear more teenagers will begin smoking in South Carolina now that state funding has been cut for prevention programs. South Carolina spent $2 million last year on smoking cessation and prevention. The percentage of youth who smoke cigarettes has dropped by half since 1999. Anti-smoking supporters say that was in part due to a program called Rage Against the Haze. The program is now without funding. Organizers and teen volunteers have traveled to football games across the state for the last two years to promote the program, but their trailer will remain parked Friday when most schools open the football season. The national Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said South Carolina is the only state to completely cut funding for such a program this year.
Written By: Jerome Arnett, Jr., M.D.
Published In: Environment & Climate News
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Publisher:
The Heartland Institute
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23399
Exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) is an unpleasant experience for many nonsmokers, and for decades was considered a nuisance. But the idea that it might actually cause disease in nonsmokers has been around only since the 1970s.
Recent surveys show more than 80 percent of Americans now believe secondhand smoke is harmful to nonsmokers.
Federal Government Reports
A 1972 U.S. surgeon general's report first addressed passive smoking as a possible threat to nonsmokers and called for an anti-smoking movement. The issue was addressed again in surgeon generals' reports in 1979, 1982, and 1984.
A 1986 surgeon general's report concluded involuntary smoking caused lung cancer, but it offered only weak epidemiological evidence to support the claim. In 1989 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged with further evaluating the evidence for health effects of SHS.
In 1992 EPA published its report, "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking," claiming SHS is a serious public health problem, that it kills approximately 3,000 nonsmoking Americans each year from lung cancer, and that it is a Group A carcinogen (like benzene, asbestos, and radon).
The report has been used by the tobacco-control movement and government agencies, including public health departments, to justify the imposition of thousands of indoor smoking bans in public places.
Flawed Assumptions
EPA's 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.
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