Idaho earns poor grades when it comes to preventing and reducing tobacco use | Opinion

It’s been 18 years since I smoked my last cigarette, and I still have dreams about smoking.

I loved everything about smoking for the 10 years I was a smoker. I loved smoking with a cup of coffee, after eating a good meal, having a drink or just sitting contemplatively on my back deck.

I wish I had never started smoking. I know how hard it is to quit.

Unfortunately, Idaho doesn’t receive good grades when it comes to policies to prevent and reduce tobacco use.

For state funding for tobacco prevention programs, the level of state tobacco taxes and for ending the sale of all flavored tobacco products, Idaho received F grades in the latest report from the American Lung Association.

Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in America, and an estimated 1,800 deaths per year in Idaho could be attributed to smoking, according to the report, released Wednesday.

The estimated annual health care cost of smoking in Idaho is about $508 million, according to the report. Idaho’s adult smoking rate is 13.3%, the high school smoking rate is 5.3% and the rate of high school students who have used tobacco is 22.8%, all higher than average.

While Idaho brings in about $73.4 million in tobacco-related revenue, the report dings Idaho for spending only about $4.5 million in state funds on tobacco control programs this year. Combined with another $1.2 million from federal funds, that’s $5.6 million, well below the recommendation from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention of $15.6 million.

I started out very much a casual smoker. I started smoking in college just socially, when going out for drinks with friends. Eventually, I became a regular, half-pack-a-day smoker and came to the realization that I was addicted.

I continued to smoke for several years, even after my first son was born, always wanting to quit but not badly enough to actually quit.

It was only until I had to have a surgery on Aug. 9, 2004, that I quit. I smoked my last cigarette at 6 a.m. that day in the parking lot of the hospital before going in for surgery. After surgery, I went through serious withdrawal symptoms, and when I came home from the hospital without having had a cigarette for a week, I decided I never wanted to go through that again.

It wasn’t an easy transition. For months, I felt like something was missing, that I didn’t know what to do with myself for those 10 times a day that I would steal away to light up. The chemical withdrawal was gone, but the behavioral withdrawal remained.

It got easier, but I know first-hand how hard it is to quit cigarettes.

I’m not one of those evangelical former smokers, looking down my nose at people who still smoke. Others may scoff when they see someone who is smoking while using an oxygen mask, but I feel nothing but empathy.

I tell my sons to never start, not even casually, naively thinking you can quit any time. It doesn’t work that way, and it’s too hard to quit. Just don’t even try it.

Once I did quit, one of my tricks to not go back was to keep track of the money I was saving. A pack of cigarettes at the time cost $2.60. So every other day on my desk calendar, I wrote down the amount of money I would have spent on cigarettes and continued to add up my total.

At $1.30 per day, I had reached a saving of about $120 in the first three months. After a year, I had saved nearly $500.

The American Lung Association report notes that, at 57 cents per pack, Idaho’s tobacco taxes are among the lowest in the nation outside of the tobacco-growing states and should be increased as part of a comprehensive plan to address tobacco use.

“One of the most effective ways to reduce tobacco use, not only among low-income individuals but also for youth, is to significantly increase the tax on all tobacco products and create parity among products,” according to the report.

The report also encourages Idaho legislators to raise tobacco retail licensing fees to pay for the enforcement of the legal sale age and to pass a comprehensive smoke-free law that eliminates smoking in all public places and workplaces, including restaurants, bars and casinos to protect workers from deadly secondhand smoke.

Idaho did receive C grades for its smoke-free workplace laws and its coverage and access to services to quit tobacco. One bright spot for Idaho in the report is that, because of Medicaid expansion, more Idahoans have access to coverage for tobacco cessation medications and counseling support.

That’s good news, for sure, and yet another reason Medicaid expansion has been good for Idaho.

But because quitting is so hard, Idaho would do well to take steps to prevent new smokers.

As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure — especially when it comes to smoking.