The South Dakota Tobacco-Free Kids Network, an alliance of health, medical, education, parent, youth, law enforcement and other civic organizations statewide, is working to assure that the state uses a significant portion of its tobacco lawsuit settlement to prevent youth from using tobacco and to help those who are using tobacco to quit.
Tobacco addiction costs South Dakota a lot.
We have the one of the highest smoking rate among teens in the nation for reported tobacco use, which, according to public health officials, each year kills 1,200 South Dakotans at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Dr. Nord, a family physician from Rapid City, said tobacco prevention efforts, coupled with programs to help smokers quit, have had a dramatic effect on reducing tobacco use in other states. He noted that the states of California, Massachusetts and Florida have all invested in tobacco prevention programs, the cornerstones of each being public education and tobacco counter advertising. All three states have achieved significant reductions in smoking rates with California's cigarette consumption falling 40 percent in the first three years of its program's existence and Massachusetts' overall cigarette consumption falling 20 percent. Since the Florida program was put into place in 1998, smoking has declined by 19 percent among middle school students and 8 percent among high school students.