Surgeon General Urges New Resolve To End Smoking

[merl]

Note END smoking, not reduce it.
It's for the children...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=263329153

One in 13 children could see their lives shortened by smoking unless the nation takes more aggressive action to end the tobacco epidemic, the U.S. Surgeon General said Friday — even as, astonishingly, scientists added still more diseases to the long list of cigarettes' harms.

...
Smoking is costing the nation nearly $300 billion in medical bills, lost productivity and other costs, officials said. Yet Frieden said states are spending less than $1.50 a person on tobacco control each year when they should be spending about $12 a person.

...
The report urges increased use of proven tobacco-control measures, including price hikes for cigarettes and expanding comprehensive indoor-smoking bans that currently cover about half the population.

The report also encourages research into newer ideas, such as whether lowering the amount of addictive nicotine in cigarettes would help people quit.

[RblDiver]

"Yet Frieden said states are spending less than $1.50 a person on tobacco control each year when they should be spending about $12 a person."

Translation: We want more money!