TOBACCO
Converse County Tobacco Prevention is here to help. Smoking has been identified as a major threat to the health of all Americans and Wyoming residents are paying the price. Currently, Wyoming residents pay $581.00 per household in state and federal tax burden to cover the cost of government smoking caused expenditures.
In Wyoming 21.3 percent of adults smoke and 22.5 percent of high school youth currently smoke. Smokeless tobacco use among male high school students currently sits at 22.2 percent with female usage much lower.
Every year 700 kids become new daily smokers and 33,000 Wyoming kids are exposed to second-hand smoke at home.
Resources are available to help you quit using tobacco products. You can call toll free 1-800-QUIT-NOW or log onto the internet at WWW.WY.QUITNET.Com.
Converse County tobacco Prevention Is also looking for individuals that would like to be part of the Converse County Tobacco prevention Coalition. If you are interested please feel free to click on the link below to fill out an application. Or you may contact Solutions For Life at 358-2846 or via email at contact@wysfl.com.
Secondhand smoke, also known as Environmental Tobacco Smoke, is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.
Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 1,900 to 2,700 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.
Secondhand smoke exposure may cause buildup of fluid in the middle ear, resulting in 700,000 to 1.6 million physician office visits per year. Secondhand smoke can also aggravate symptoms in 400,000 to 1,000,000 children with asthma.
A study found that nonsmokers exposed to environmental smoke were 25 percent more likely to have coronary heart diseases compared to nonsmokers not exposed to smoke. Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effects. Levels of ETS in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers and 2 to 6 times higher than in office workplaces.
SMOKE-FREE RESTAURANTS
COALITION WEB LINKS
ONLINE APPLICATION FOR COALITION
Helpful links
Kids and Families:
WWW.TOBACCOFREEKIDS.ORG
WWW.UNFILTEREDTV.COM
Parenting:
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/parenting/script.htm
Cessation:
WWW.WY.QUITNET.COM
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/quit/canquit.htm
Contact:
contact@wysfl.com