Governor Dirk Kempthorne today launched a new statewide advertising campaign designed to reduce smoking in Idaho. And in addition to the terrible human toll that tobacco takes, the health care costs to treat tobacco-related diseases run in the tens of millions of dollars. In addition to the television ads, the campaign's radio, billboard and print messages will be released early next year. The Department of Health and Welfare's Bureau of Health Promotion is directing the campaign, which is aimed at preventing people from starting to smoke, and to encourage smokers to quit. The ads help people understand the real consequences of smoking and chewing tobacco.
Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of diseases and deaths in the United States.
According to CDC, tobacco causes 400,000 deaths in the United States each year - more than AIDS, alcohol, drug abuse, car crashes, murders, suicides, and fires combined. In Idaho, where an estimated 20 percent of adults smoke, approximately 1,600 people die every year from smoking-related diseases, according to the Health and Welfare department. To be successful, government agencies, community health organizations, anti-smoking advocacy groups, and grassroots coalitions are all going to have to work together over the long haul. Plus, some kids believe things they hear on TV more than they believe things they hear from other people.