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America received some great news last year when the federal government reported that youth tobacco usage was at historic lows. Keeping young people away from tobacco has long been a government priority, but when it comes to cigarettes the focus should now be on helping adult smokers to quit.
More than 28 million adult Americans continue to smoke cigarettes, including more than 500,000 Alabamans. Smoking not only harms the health of smokers but also hurts society by exposing others to secondhand smoke and increasing our healthcare costs. In Alabama alone, smoking-related diseases adds $2.1 billion to our healthcare expenses every year, including an additional $309 million in Medicaid costs.
It is clear that Alabama lawmakers should prioritize helping our state’s smokers to quit, and that is why I introduced legislation last year that would make it easier for adults who smoke to switch from cigarettes to safer, smoke-free alternatives. I plan to introduce similar legislation in this session and urge my colleagues to join me in this critical effort to improve Alabama’s public health.
Quitting smoking is not easy. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than half of adult smokers try to quit each year, but fewer than one in 10 succeed. This is largely because traditional nicotine replacement therapies—gums, patches, medications, and other products—do not work for everyone. Fortunately, there are other options available.
Heated tobacco products (HTPs) heat tobacco without burning it, thus avoiding the production of toxic smoke. This is important because it is the smoke that is responsible for most of the serious health issues related to smoking, such as lung disease and cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has long acknowledged that tobacco and nicotine products fall on a continuum of risk, with traditional cigarettes being the most harmful. In comparison, HTPs are 90 percent safer than traditional cigarettes.
Given this information, Alabama must consider ways to move adults who smoke toward less harmful alternatives. In doing so, we can improve both the health of hundreds of thousands of Alabamans and reduce spending on smoking-related illnesses.
HTPs, though relatively new in the U.S., are popular in more than 60 countries. As HTPs have been introduced into the markets there, cigarette sales have declined. Many people find that HTPs offer a similar experience to smoking a traditional cigarette but without the harmful smoke and fewer dangerous byproducts.
Last year, Mississippi legislators passed Senate Bill 3105, a bill that would lower taxes on HTPs to ensure they are more affordable than cigarettes. This would help create an additional incentive for smokers to try a product that will be better for them.
My bill would do the same. This commonsense approach would not only improve public health but could also save Alabama billions of dollars in healthcare and productivity costs as more people successfully transition away from smoking.
We have a real opportunity to improve public health in Alabama by creating the right regulatory framework to support new products and innovations. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure this legislation moves forward.
Rolanda Hollis serves in the Alabama Legislature representing Jefferson County.
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