Tobacco Debate

About a week ago I wrote in this space about tobacco. I was coming off the President’s Cancer Panel meeting in Mississippi on tobacco and encouraged about a bipartisan group of congressional leaders reintroducing legislation to require FDA regulation of tobacco.

Over the last couple of days the debate on tobacco has heated back up. In reading this story and this story it strikes me that we are not trying hard enough. Tobacco is killing close to a half million people in the U.S. every year and every one of those deaths is preventable. We need to be doing everything we can to help people quit, prevent them from starting and to protect all of us from secondhand smoke.

Tactics such as FDA regulation of tobacco, raising taxes on tobacco and increasing funding for prevention and cessation programs are all necessary steps in helping to make sure Americans lead healthier lives. We must take these steps to lose fewer of our friends and loved ones to cancer and other smoking-related diseases.

If you smoke - I am asking you to stop. If you know someone who is starting to smoke - I am asking you to stop them. And we must ask our elected officials to make this issue a priority.

LIVESTRONG,
Lance