Comments about ‘Utah smokers at a record low: 9.1%’

this is great news. keeping the word of wisdom is the way to go.

sweet!

"Public health administrators credit the reduction in use to the public awareness campaign underwritten by the settlement, the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program and the TRUTH marketing campaign. The report also credits local public health departments and partner public service agencies in communities statewide for the decrease."

"And the state has 85,000 fewer smokers because of the public education efforts, said David Sundwall."

Hmm, I think there might be additional reasons for people quitting (or not starting) smoking than just those that were paid for by taxpayers, regardless of how hard the government tries to pat itself on the back and take credit for this.

So do 9.1% of Utahns smoke - as the title of the article claims? Or do 9.1% of Utahns use tobacco, as the article states? Does this number include users of smokeless tobacco? I occasionally enjoy a cigar; am I part of the 9.1%?

I`m certainly glad to see that even the gentiles are adhering to the Word of Wisdom. Now as soon as we can get them to achieve full fellowship, as truly dedicated members, we will recieve the bounties of heaven`s blessings.

I wonder how many smokers were not polled or asked if they smoked.
I smoke and I was not included in any survey
You have to wonder how accurate the numbers are.
But, congrats for everyone that quit!

The legislators want to help balance the budget on the backs of these 9.1% of Utahn's. WOW must just be the rich that smoke.

Guess Utah will have to start taxing soda pop, candy, and ice cream soon. These, like tobacco products, are items harmful to the health of human beings. Fair is fair!

I say let the smoker's smoke if they want to. President Obama, who struggles with a cigarette addiction himself, approves this role for the federal government. He recently named Thomas Frieden, the man behind New York's smoking and eating directives, to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his latest assault on unhealthy behavior. By 2012, the mayor hopes to lower the proportion of adults who drink one or more sugar-sweetened beverages each day by 20 percent and his news was about plans to forbid smoking at public parks and beaches. One can see why politicians find the paternalistic option so compelling these days. For one thing, behavior modification through public policy really works. With help from free nicotine patches and taxes that bring the cost of a pack of cigarettes to nearly $10, New York City's smoking rate has dropped from 21.5 to 15.6 percent. Legal and political thinkers spend a lot of time puzzling about how to protect people from their own bad decisions without infringing on their rights. Because Democrats hold power at the moment, they face the greater peril of paternalistic overreaching.

Is it that so few smoke, or is that too few Mormons who smoke (and there are a lot) really want to own up to the fact? Puff...

Re: 8:25 AM, Brother Chuck Schroeder is 100% right.

Guess we can chew tobacco more?.

A Few More Rednecks

What this world needs is a few more rednecks
Some people with the nerve to take a stand
What this world needs is a little more respect
For the Lord and the law and the working man

We could use a little peace and satisfaction
Some good people up front to take the lead
A little less talk and a little more action
And a few more rednecks is what we need

My dictionary says that a redneck is a working class person, a politically actionary one from a rural area, and while all of that may be true to a degree, it sounds to me like some intellectual trying to describe people they neither care for nor understand and it doesn't begin to go far enough in the description of a redneck for someone who considers himself to be one.

Rednecks have been misunderstood for far too long and the term has always had a negative connotation to people who don't know any better.

It all comes down to the way you look at it.

I think this is a low number however with nearly 190,000 Utahns that still smoke and 1,150 die each year because of their addiction just think Utah, The Red State, with this greater peril of paternalistic overreaching, seeing the Mormon Church won't give you FREE HEALTHCARE, I'm sure the tea drinking mormon Sen Hatch will tax tobacco to death, and see to it Obamacon's healthcare package pays for your healthcare by taxing tobacco, then these PC Thought Police Legal and political thinkers will spend a lot of extra time puzzling about how to protect people from their own bad decisions without infringing on their rights and tax everything that has sugar in it so those in Utah will not get so fat, and will lose weight and name it another healthcare ammendment to this Bill.

Smoking is a vile habit. Lately, there actually seem to be more smokers in the towns South of Salt Lake City.

Now if we could just get the leges to pass a law against smoking and driving.... Just as bad as texting!!

To Amy@8:25
If everyone who are in the vicinity around me drank soda, or ate ice cream and spilled it on me and made my cloth stink the I would agree with you but that is not the case. I would have no problems with smokers if they simply did not exhale. The biggest problem I have with smokers is that they are all litterers, they are always flicking their butts on the ground or out of their car window.

RE: Anonymous | 9:24 a.m.

and also

RE: Smoking | 9:29 a.m.

We know liberal's loves to tax anything that moves and does not move.


Perhaps any/all DVD's next should be taxed more to, with smoking in them, such as Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke and Still Smoking, because non-smoker's hate smoker's?. Hey Sen Hatch, with your government controls, you missed one with your latest taxation proposals to hit society is a tax on soda pop. Rather than allowing people to be responsible for their own body, now either the states or the feds are deciding whether they should help us modify our diets by imposing hefty taxes.

I guess ya'll are so well off and so rich you love to pay taxes hey?.

The anti smoking campaigns have nothing to do with the decrease in smoking. The price increases are the reason people have quit.

I LOVE THAT IDEA. Smoking is just as distracting, ESPECIALLY if the ash falls on your clothing and you are trying not to burn your skin or your clothes.

Also, quit using the world as your ashtray. Dispose of your cigarettes in the car. Trash your own environment, not everybody else's.

Fair is fair Utah, if they would only tax diapers and baby formula, things would be more fair. These thing's clog up our landfills. Plus they smell more then lit tobacco does. Let's tax them to death to. Plus they draw flys to.

What is it about 2 pack a dayers who think nothing about tossing 40 butts/ day on the ground.....talk about a landfil of garbage! throw your butts in the trash not on the ground....Officers need to write a few $250 littering tickets and you would see smokers using a can instead of the street or sidewalk!