Current Events & Trends: Smoking rates higher among poorer people

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Smoking rates higher among poorer people

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The New York Times recently highlighted the disparity between smoking rates in poorer and wealthier areas of the country—4 in 10 in poorer areas and 1 in 10 in wealthier areas. The data was compiled by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and released in March of this year. "The national smoking rate has declined steadily, but there is a deep geographic divide [between pockets of affluence and impoverished areas of the country]" (Sabrina Tavernise and Robert Gebeloff, "In a New Divide, Smoking Is Becoming a Habit of the Poor," March 25, 2014).

As the poor smoke more they also suffer more of the health consequences—ultimately living shorter lives. The comment of a 51-year-old laborer sums up the trap of nicotine addiction. While many of his friends have died of lung cancer he continues to smoke but says, "I want to see my grandson grow up."

That dream alone should be enough for the man to stop smoking. You wish it could be the catalyst. People who live life on the edge see no further problem with puffing their life away on "smokes." A fatalistic view of life coupled with no hope for a better quality of life creates a vacuum. Cigarettes are often an attempt to fill that vacuum.

Education campaigns highlighting the health dangers of smoking help, but in the end for a person to quit smoking it often takes a health scare—their own or someone else's—to quit. But until you have a central purpose for living right in the center of your life, habits that destroy life will always be a crutch to fill the gap. Find your life's purpose and fill your life with meaning.

To learn more about this subject, read our article "Smoking and Health: The Often-Overlooked Key" (Source: The New York Times.)

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Comments

  • CharlieM
    May I suggest looking at this from the breech rather than down the muzzle? A young pack-a-day smoker earning minimum wage (possibly 20-30 hour a week) is spending nearly one hour of gross pay for his daily habit. Compare that with a smoker when minimum wage was $1.25; cigarettes were around twenty cents a pack. The struggling smokers, already at the poor end of the pay scale, are pulled deeper into poverty by their addiction. Few break the mold - God helped me out of the rut more than forty years ago. I suggest that smoking has become a habit of the poor primarily because of depression and/or discouragement. There are things we can do to encourage a smoker to quit - and things we can do that discourage all the more. Taking some time to understand and learn things that we can use to help someone quit the habit, is a worthy undertaking. I recall the Good News with the smoking syringe on the cover. I have been through the underground "smokers lungs" display at Mayo Clinic. And, I have experience the addiction first hand. These poor smokers need our help. Charlie
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