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(Circulation. 1997;96:1070.)
© 1997 American Heart Association, Inc.

Articles

Curbing the Tobacco Menace

William B. Kannel, MD, MPH

From the Department of Medicine, Section of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Evans Memorial Research Foundation, Boston University School of Medicine/Framingham Heart Study, Boston, Mass.

Correspondence to W.B. Kannel, MD, BU/Framingham Heart Study, 5 Thurber St, Framingham, MA 01701.

Key Words: Editorials • smoking • prevention

	Introduction

 
The report by Lightwood and Glantz¹ on the short-term economic and health benefits to be gained by an aggressive antismoking campaign directed at adult smokers provides a thoughtful analysis designed to encourage policy makers to take appropriate action. Since the perspective comes from Dr Glantz, who has devoted an entire career to combating the pernicious tobacco habit, one is inclined to heed his advice.

Cigarette smoking has been cited as the leading preventable cause of death in the United States and a major contributor to the huge annual economic costs imposed by the cardiovascular and lung diseases it promotes.^{2 3} It was estimated in the Framingham Study that cigarette smoking accounted for 55% of the coronary events observed in a cohort aged <55 years.⁴ The preventive potential of smoking abatement in adult smokers to avoid coronary disease is huge because those who quit have only half the risk of those who continue to smoke, regardless of how long and how much they previously smoked. Getting smokers to quit deserves a high priority among measures advocated to prevent cardiovascular and lung diseases.

Lightwood and Glantz correctly point out that despite the huge death toll and medical costs attributed to smoking, resources are only grudgingly allocated for programs to combat smoking. They point out that aside from the shameful bowing of our politicians to the interests of the tobacco industry, the tobacco control advocates have to contend with the need of policy makers to justify spending money now to save money in the . . . [Full Text of this Article]