The American Lung Association rates states on how well they are doing in several areas related to smoking cessation. While we got good grades in some categories, according the ALA, we are failing overall. Our grades are B, C, and two F’s – ouch!
First, the good news. Wyoming is one of the top four states in the nation when it comes to spending money on tobacco prevention. Remember that tobacco settlement? We use our money wisely from that – to the tune of $6.7 million (includes $1.3 million from the Feds). That’s not bad at all, and it got us a B. Why not an A? Because the Centers for Disease Control has set a target spending amount of $9 million.
Our C grade came in the category of what we pay for as far as smoking cessation. This is primarily social services money that falls under healthcare. Here’s the breakdown:
• Medications: Covers NRT Gum, NRT Patch, NRT Lozenge, Varenicline (Chantix) and Bupropion (Zyban)
• Counseling: Covers individual counseling
• Barriers to Coverage: Limits on duration, annual limit on quit attempts and minimal co-payments required.
One criticism in the report card for this category is that we don’t cover counseling for state employees who wish to smoke and they also have to pay a co-pay for smoking cessation products. Still, a B isn’t so bad.
Where we get failing grades are our extremely low (compared to other states) tax of 60 cents per pack on cigarettes. Average nationwide is $1.46. That gets us an F in the tax department.
The other F comes from minimal restrictions on where people can smoke. We don’t regulate smoking very much at all, compared to other states. And because there aren’t many regulations, there isn’t any provision to enforce the regulations that don’t exist. That gets us another F.
The theme here is how well we do, as a state with things that have been shown to reduce smoking. Each of those points has a measurable impact on the percentage of people who smoke in a state. Even with our two F’s, we still only have 20% of adults smoking and rank 17th nationwide in that. All in all, we should have gotten a C.
