State needs to cut smoking rate

If Madmen were set in the present day, the television drama that features actors puffing away on cigarettes could easily take place in Indiana instead of New York.
That's because we Hoosiers smoke too much.
According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey published last week, more than 26 percent of Hoosiers smoked in 2008. We're No. 2 in the nation, only behind West Virginia. Indiana was ranked sixth in 2007. Nationally, 20.6 percent of Americans light up, so clearly, Indiana has much work to do to catch up with the rest of the nation.
We suppose it could be argued the recession, with its anxiety- and stress-inducing pangs of uncertainty, is driving the numbers upward, but Indiana has always had high smoking rates no matter what phase of the economy.
We need to do a better job with existing tools to snuff smoking.
One of those, a ban on workplace smoking, was enacted in Delaware County in 2006 after nearly a decade of debate.
What's needed now is a comprehensive statewide measure that prohibits smoking at the workplace and in public places such as restaurants. The patchwork quilt of anti-smoking laws that are found across the state needs to give way to a comprehensive and uniform measure. Only 7 percent of Indiana residents live in an area that has a comprehensive ban against workplace smoke.
Second, the legislature needs to take another look at raising the tax on tobacco. Indiana charges 99.5 cents a pack, which ranks 27th in the nation in 2008. If it gets more expensive to light up, smokers put the cigarettes down.
Finally, the state needs to spend more on education efforts, especially those targeted at young people.
Funds spent on a cigarette tax increase could go toward education and prevention efforts because that's where the war against tobacco can be fought and won.
And prevention needs to focus on low-income adults. The CDC study shows that nationally, 31.5 percent who are below the poverty level smoke compared to 19.6 percent above the level. There's no reason to believe the statistics for Indiana are much different.
As buying tobacco products gets more expensive, it's easier to argue that quitting makes sense economically. We've all heard about the health benefits of kicking the habit, and while they cannot be refuted, the most effective weapon to cut smoking rates lies in the wallet.
Madmen is set in the early 1960s when smoking was socially acceptable at work, in public and at home. By today's standards, it looks archaic. It's time Indiana take more action so we don't look like a throwback to another era.