As smoking rates fall across the country, the percentage of New Yorkers smoking is actually on the rise, up from 14 percent in 2010 to 16 percent in 2013. Although lower than the national average of 18 percent, the findings from the New York City Department of Health s annual health survey are still very disturbing.
Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, smoking was banned in public parks and most other public places as well. Ad campaigns were run depicting graphic images of smokers meant to deter young people from taking up the habit. And, cigarettes were taxed at rates higher than those of any other municipality in the country. According to Dr. Mary Bassett, the city s health commissioner, the reason for this upswing in smoking is the inability to continue to fund programs aimed at helping smokers quit.
She also says that the culture of smoking has changed, with a rise in part-time smokers. Now, she says, we re aiming at smokers who think they don't smoke enough for it to hurt them. This is a product that is not safe in any amount.
In response to this new breed of smokers, the NYC Department of Health has launched a new campaign, Imagine for Life, which highlights the long-term dangers of smoking. This is costing the city almost $1 million.
Of course, what Dr. Bassett and many others at the NYC Department of Health are ignoring is the role of newer approaches to reducing the dreadful toll of smoking. The same-old, same-old doesn t work, while tobacco harm reduction methods have succeeded, including replacing cigarettes with smokeless-snus in Sweden and Norway, and the mass movement of smokers towards reduced-harm products like e-cigarettes. But the official blackout on endorsing, or even mentioning, such products must be eliminated for the benefit of addicted smokers: 21st century public health must leave their 20th-century superstitions and agendas demonizing smokers and the evil tobacco industry, as they are now jumping into the reduced-harm marketplace with both feet. Although Dr. Bassett points to budget cuts interfering with the continuation of programs to help smokers quit, she does not acknowledge that the FDA-approved methods for helping smokers quit the same tools which the city would be pushing in their programs are not effective. The money spent on this new campaign would be much better used to fund programs promoting tools that actually work. The fact is that e-cigarettes are 99 percent less hazardous than cigarettes and are used almost exclusively by smokers and former smokers who quit by switching to e-cigarettes. However, if those in public health continue to ignore the role of e-cigarettes, smoking will remain the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.