Regarding the July 15 Style article “The reignited allure of cigarettes”:
The renewed glamorization of cigarettes is not harmless nostalgia. Smoking remains a leading cause of preventable death in the United States, claiming nearly half a million lives each year. Decades of research also show that exposure to tobacco imagery can shape young people’s attitudes toward smoking and increase the likelihood that they will start.
The desire to slow down and find relief from our always-on culture is understandable. But nicotine addiction should not be confused with an escape. As cigarettes reappear in celebrity photos, fashion and social media, the people who shape popular culture should consider the influence these images can have, particularly on young people.
If smoking is going to be part of the cultural conversation, quitting should be, too. Audiences deserve access to evidence-based resources that can help them break nicotine addiction.
Impactful steps to combat smoking include reducing the addictiveness and appeal of cigarettes, driving innovation in cessation medications and helping adult smokers quit or switch to less harmful products, all while protecting young people from becoming addicted in the first place.
Too much progress has been made toward driving smoking rates to historic lows to repackage a deadly addiction as the next retro trend.
Kathy Crosby, Washington
The writer is CEO and president of Truth Initiative.
My father started smoking at age 14 and died at the young age of 54 from metastatic lung cancer, depriving his family of five of his love, kindness and affection. Next month I will turn 98, and there’s hardly a day that goes by that I don’t think of him, that I don’t mourn him. So curse cigarettes — they’re potent killers. Smoking is not glamorous, it’s not romantic — it’s self-destructive. Stop before it’s too late.
Jack Salem, Los Angeles
Alcohol’s real cost
Neither Monica Pearce’s July 13 letter to the editor, “These alcohol taxes hurt distilleries and consumers,” nor the July 7 editorial “A 41 percent tax? Hold our beer” considered alcohol use’s negative impact on the economy. Most credible estimates put this cost at more than 2 percent of economic activity in the U.S. Importantly, alcohol tax revenues and the overall contribution that the sector makes to the economy are just fractions of this amount.
These costs are both direct in the form of increased health care costs from alcohol-attributable diseases and injuries and indirect in the form of lost economic productivity. Workers who use alcohol miss more work, and when they do show up, they are less productive than other workers. Also, alcohol-related deaths and injuries hit younger people — especially males — particularly hard, which results in grim societal and economic costs.
Alcohol tax increases have been shown to save lives. For example, research shows that Maryland’s 3 percent alcohol sales tax increase in 2011 resulted in fewer drunk driving deaths and injuries, reduced underage drinking and raised tens of millions of new tax dollars that have supported critical public health needs.
The World Health Organization recommends that tobacco taxes make up at least 75 percent of the retail price. They don’t yet have a recommendation for alcohol, but it should be a similar share. In this context, the 41 percent tax seems like a bargain for alcohol producers.
Jeffrey Drope, Baltimore
The writer is a research professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Americans are underinformed on cannabis
As a pediatrician, I really appreciate the July 14 online morning briefing “The latest science on cannabis has some good news and bad news‚” which described adverse effects of cannabis use. THC use is on the rise in young adults. Unsurprisingly, patients are often underinformed regarding its health risks.
One risk of cannabis use that deserves greater consideration is cannabis-associated psychotic symptoms (CAPS). These are episodes of hallucinations and paranoia severe enough to require hospitalization for the risks the patient poses to themselves and others. The risk of CAPS is substantial and under-appreciated: About 1 in 200 users may be affected over the course of their lifetimes.
Furthermore, there is also evidence that the same conditions that often nudge individuals toward cannabis use (such as anxiety and depression) put a person at an even higher risk of experiencing CAPS. I know from working with patients that when acute psychosis turns chronic, the effects can be devastating.
Young adults make decisions according to the information they have. Continuing to publish scientific findings is a valuable public service.
Xavier Bledsoe, Philadelphia
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