Poor smokers in NY spend quarter of income on cigarettes: study
“They can be a hard-to-reach population,” Peter Constantakes, a health department spokesman, said in an interview on Wednesday.
Raising the cost of cigarettes through taxation is a proven method of encouraging smokers to quit, he said.
More Smoking Facts
Kentucky is the nation’s leading tobacco grower.
The biggest percentage of the world’s tobacco is grown in China.
Large amounts of nicotine was once given to elephants in order to put them to sleep via animal dart guns.
The Centers for Disease Control’s list of the World’s Most addictive substances places is at the top of the list.
Heroin placed 5th.
Forbidden to advertise on television, cigarette companies rent huge signs in sport stadiums.
Humphrey Bogart, seen smoking in Casablanca, smoked heavily in real life as well. He died of lung cancer at the age of 57.
In 1953, the New England Journal of Medicine announced that the evidence linking smoking and lung cancer was “so strong as to be considered proof within the everyday meaning of the word.”
Nearly some 90 percent of nonsmokers have some residues of cigarette smoke in their blood.
The United States produces several tons of tobacco each year. Only China produces more.
About three quarters of the American Tobacco market is controlled by two companies, Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco (formerly R.J. Reynolds).
Tobacco-brand appearances have been seen in many adolescent and family movies. These include Ghostbusters II, Home Alone 2, Honey I shrunk the Kids, Kindergarten Cop, men in Black and The Nutty Professor.
The state spends about $41 million a year on tobacco control programs - about half of what it spent four years ago.
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By Jonathan Allen
NEW YORK