Low-income smokers have a harder time quitting, which helps explain why Kentucky leads the nation in smoking

Lower-income smokers have a harder time quitting than health-conscious middle- and upper-class Americans, Keith Humphreys reports for The Washington Post.

The numbers suggest one reason why Kentuckians lead the nation in smoking. Kentucky ranks 48th among the states and the District of Columbia in median household income in 2011-13, according to the Census Bureau; it ranked 45th in per-capita personal income in 2013, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The pol'ls margin of error was plus or minus 1 percentage point.

A 2008 Gallup poll of more than 75,000 Americans showed that the rate of smoking among people making less than $24,000 a year was more than double that of those making $90,000 or more. The higher the income category, the lower the smoking rate, except those making less than $6,000 per year, which was skewed because many in this bracket are students, Rob Goszkowski writes for Gallup.

Once health warnings about cigarettes became widely known, better-off Americans were more likely to quit smoking. "High-income families decreased their smoking by 62 percent from 1965 to 1999, versus only 9 percent for low-income families," Humphreys reports. Education may also be a factor; income and education are usually closely related.

Humphreys list three reasons poorer smokers have a hard time quitting:
1. They inhale more deeply on each draw from a cigarette, creating stronger addiction and making it harder to quit.
2. They don't have the same social support from their colleagues and friends as wealthier smokers. For example, a doctor is likely to be encouraged to quit smoking or get social disapproval if he or she is the last of their peers to stop; a person who works at roadside cleanup might "face precisely the reverse social incentives from his smoking coworkers," Humphreys writes.
3. They are likely to have less access to effective smoking-cessation programs and less access to address behavioral health issues, like depression, that make quitting more difficult. Kentucky has addressed those problems recently by having Medicaid cover smoking cessation and behavioral-health care by any licensed provider.

Some suggest that because lower income smokers have a harder time quitting, using higher tobacco taxes as an incentive for them to quit should be re-evaluated. Humphreys writes, "Deeply addicted, low-income smokers may face the choice between spending much-needed income on tobacco or venturing into the black market for untaxed cigarettes, which carries significant risks of its own."

Kentucky's cigarette tax of 60 cents a pack is lower than all but 10 states. New York ranks first at $4.35 per pack, which pushes the price of cigarettes to $10-$15 a pack, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids website.

1/4 of Ky. adults say they have tried e-cigs; just over half of adults (but not the e-cig users) want them taxed and regulated

More than four in 10 Kentucky adults under age 30 have tried electronic cigarettes, and the older and better off economically Kentuckians are, the less likely they are to have tried them. Overall, one-fourth of Kentucky adults and 60 percent of current smokers have tried the devices.

Those are major findings of the latest Kentucky Health Issues Poll, which also found that 61 percent Kentucky adults want the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate e-cigarettes and 53 percent want them to be taxed in the same way as traditional cigarettes.

The poll, taken Oct. 8-Nov. 6, has an error margin of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. It was conducted by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati. A random sample of 1,597 adults from throughout Kentucky was interviewed by telephone, including landlines and cell phones.

The poll was conducted for the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky and the Cincinnati-based Interact for Health nonprofit. “Last year, Kentucky became one of dozens of states to prohibit the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors,” Susan Zepeda, president and CEO of the foundation, noted in a news release.

The poll didn't ask respondents if they were currently using e-cigarettes, but the data offer some interesting details: Men (29%) were more likely than women (20%) to have used an e-cigarette, and college graduates (14%) and were less likely than others (27%) to have done so. So were residents of the Lexington area, at 16%. Among those who said they previously smoked cigarettes, 19 percent said they had tried the electronic version.

As might be expected, current smokers those who had used an e-cigarette were much less likely to say the devices should be taxed like tobacco cigarettes.

UK cancer-center director urges lawmakers to raise cigarette tax and pass a statewide smoking ban to reduce cancer deaths

The Markey Cancer Center at the University of Kentucky supports a statewide smoking ban and an increase in the state cigarette tax to significantly reduce cancer deaths in the state, the center's director told a legislative committee Sept. 3.

“We are highly supportive, and we hope that you will be supportive as well, of (these) initiatives that we think will improve the overall health of Kentuckians,” Dr. B. Mark Evers told the state legislative Tobacco Settlement Agreement Fund Oversight Committee.

A news release from the Legislative Research Commission said Evers presented the numbers to back up his advice: Kentucky is first nationally in percentage of people who get cancer, and in overall cancer mortality. Lung cancer alone accounts for about 35 percent of Kentucky cancer deaths; nationally, lung cancer's share is 28 percent.

Twenty-eight percent of adult Kentuckians smoke, with approximately 8,000 deaths each year from smoking-related illnesses. The greatest incidence of tobacco-related cancers is in Eastern Kentucky.

That is the highest percentage in the U.S., Evers notes, adding that there is an indirect relationship between cigarette taxes and smoking rates. Kentucky has the 12th lowest cigarette tax among the states.

"Raising the cost of cigarettes and a statewide smoking ban could help cut Kentucky cancer deaths by 50 percent," Evers said. That is the Markey Cancer Center's goal over the next five years.

The center has a new strategic plan, "Conquering Cancer in the Commonwealth," that focuses on the state's "major cancer killers" -- lung, head and neck, colorectal, breast, and cervical cancer.

In response to a question about how to decrease the number of smokers in Kentucky, Evers pointed to local smoke-free policies and increased efforts in Appalachia toward smoking cessation.

When asked what it will take to lower the percentage of Kentucky smokers to less than 10 percent, Evers recommended three things: increasing the cigarette excise tax, a statewide smoking ban, and instituting lung-cancer screening projects like those in place at UK and the University of Louisville.

“Those three things are really going to help drive down those numbers,” he said.