Faced with the results of new study on smoking and lung cancer in New York, the state needs to direct more money to anti-smoking campaigns -- and focus that money in areas where it will have the greatest impact. The American Cancer Society this week revealed data showing a big difference between lung cancer rates in different part of the state. The eye-opening news for us is that the rate of both smoking and lung cancer is higher upstate than downstate and the rates in Cayuga County are even higher than the upstate average.
This should cause concern for both local and state health officials. In Cayuga County, the health department, the Tobacco Free Partnership and the Tobacco Free Coalition are doing all they can to reduce smoking locally through public education increasing awareness of the problem and reducing the social acceptability of smoking, and by providing programs to help people quit. These are all laudable goals, especially considering that lung cancer is one of the most preventable types of cancer.
But more clearly needs to be done to reduce the number of people getting sick, and the state has cut its funding for public education and smoking-cessation programs by more than 50 percent in recent years as it deals with a wildly out of balance budget. But putting money into anti-smoking programs isn't good policy just because saving lives is the thing to do. It also makes good fiscal sense because the cost of treating patients for smoking related illnesses far exceeds the cost of prevention.
Simply put, spending millions to reduce smoking can save billions in health-care costs. Armed with this new data, state leaders need to agree to increase funding for anti-smoking programs, with a higher percentage of those funds going to places with greater numbers of smokers.
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