Way to Go California – 1 800 No Butts at Your Service

California’s Example Provides Encouragement that Smokers Can Stop

Today in the LA Times, it was reported that the use of cigarettes in California is steadily declining.

Smoking statistics for adults have dropped since California passed a twenty-five cent tax on each pack of cigarettes.

Cigarette Taxes Encourage Quitting Smoking

The decline of adult smokers in California is at forty-one percent since the new tax, reported by data from the Department of Public Health.

This is great news and offers hope that the newly-passed government cigarette tax may just stop many smokers in their tracks.

Eric Bailey, from the LA Times states, “Anti-smoking advocates are celebrating this week’s 20th anniversary of California’s groundbreaking tobacco-control effort by releasing new data showing that cigarette use is continuing its steep decline in the Golden State.”

Last year only thirteen percent of California adults were addicted to cigarettes, which is a ten percent decrease since 1988. Another encouraging bit of data is the decline in youth smokers, which is currently a little over fourteen percent and one of the lowest percentages in the entire nation.

Way to go California!

No If’s or Butt’s About It

For those smokers who are wanting to quit, try calling the 1 800 No Butts quit smoking help line. Calls are currently up twenty-five percent since last year. This is another example that people are seriously considering the health hazards of smoking and the cost of their cigarette habits.

Our hats go off to 1 800 No Butts. Kimberly Belshe, Secretary of California’s Health and Human Services Agency, reported the estimates of lives saved through this program the last twenty years is as high as one million and over eighty-six billion dollars in health care expenses.

Credit for this article goes to the LA Times
For more information contact eric.bailey @ latimes.com

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