The 2010 Burden of Tobacco Report

Last week the 2010 Burden of Tobacco Report was released. The financial and human costs associated with tobacco in Wisconsin are huge. 15% of all deaths in Wisconsin are attributable to smoking, with the largest portion of deaths being from lung cancer. Nearly 7,717 people die in Wisconsin annually due to smoking.

While Wisconsin has made great strides in terms of passing policies like smoke-free air and increasing the cigarette tax- still the burden of smoking is immense.

This report also estimated that the economic impact of smoking in Wisconsin is about $4.5 billion. They break down that number into nearly $3 billion in health care costs and another billion in lost productivity.

Our work is far from over in tobacco control. More to the point, with the new threats from Big Tobacco, it is unclear what the burden of smokeless products are. It is also unclear how that burden might grow as new products, dual users, and other factors change the face of the burden of tobacco in the future.

Visit this site to download the full PDF of the 2010 report: http://tiny.cc/burden2010