READER’S VIEW TOBACCO USE
Raising tobacco taxes will lower use among youth
February is National Children’s Dental Health Month. As a dentist, I consider the single biggest future threat to the health of Idaho’s children to be tobacco.
That’s one reason I support current efforts to increase the state’s tax on tobacco products.
Each year 1,400 youngsters in Idaho become new cigarette smokers. Twenty-four thousand young people alive today will die from tobacco-related illnesses.
In the dental world, smokeless products such as chewing tobacco are a particular concern. They tend to be popular in rural areas and are often wrongly viewed as less dangerous than smoking. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Spit tobacco causes leukoplakia, a disease of the mouth that occurs in more than half of all users in the first three years of use. Studies have found that 60 to 78 percent of smokeless tobacco users have oral lesions. Smokeless tobacco has also been linked to tooth decay and gingivitis. A study by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found chewing tobacco users were four times more likely than non-users to have decayed dental root surfaces.
The National Cancer Institute has identified 28 carcinogens in smokeless tobacco products produced in the U.S. Smokeless tobacco users are at a heightened risk for oral cancer compared to non-users, and these cancers can form within five years of regular use. Constant exposure to tobacco juice causes cancer of the esophagus, pharynx, larynx, stomach and pancreas.
These facts are truly shocking. If we need to be aware of anything during Children’s Dental Health Month, it’s the importance of keeping our children from ever using these products.
One positive step would be to increase the tax on all tobacco products. The point, from my perspective, is not so much raising money as raising barriers to teen use of dangerous tobacco products — although the funds could certainly be used to meet smoking cessation, prevention and public health needs.
Studies, and experience in state after state, show that higher taxes are one of the most effective ways to reduce tobacco use among both youth and adults. Every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by 6.5 percent and overall cigarette consumption by about 4 percent.
Those are not small numbers. A recent study indicates tobacco use currently costs Idaho $319 million a year in health-care-related costs. Every Idaho taxpaying household, including that of non-smokers, annually pays about $539 to cover costs related to smoking.
Idaho has one of the lowest cigarette taxes in America, ranking eighth from the bottom (42nd). Idaho’s Legislature is considering a tobacco tax this session, and its members should certainly factor that statistic into their thinking. By keeping the price of tobacco products so low, we encourage behavior that damages thousands of lives while costing us millions of wasted dollars. Why make it so easy to do the wrong thing?
In my practice I see children with beautiful teeth. Some of those same children will return in their 20s with tooth decay, lesions, gingivitis and diseases such as leukoplakia — all caused by tobacco products. How can we allow this?
If you are a parent, particularly of a teen, take the time to talk to your child this month about the dangers of tobacco use. Make sure he or she knows that smokeless tobacco is still tobacco. Help your children avoid a habit that could ruin their lives.
Parents are the most important voice. Hopefully this year our elected officials will support that voice by making a statement, and by moving the dial on Idaho’s current status as a tobacco-friendly state.
Gregory J. Bengtson, DDS, is president of the Idaho State Dental Association.
