How does Maine rate when it comes to tobacco use and prevention?
Maine’s efforts at funding and partnering for prevention are working. Maine has received national recognition from the American Lung Association for its impressive outcomes in prevention in schools, workplaces, communities, and retail stores. Since 1997, when PTM began, to 2005, rates for adults who smoke decreased from 30% to 21%, and the rate among high school students plunged nearly 60%. However, thanks to the highly funded efforts of the tobacco industry, Maine also faces difficult challenges when it comes to smoking. Smoking kills more people from the state than alcohol, AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined. Messages of prevention are vitally important across the state, particularly with youth, young adults, those with chronic disease, those with economic hardships, and other segments of the population that are unfairly targeted by the tobacco industry and vulnerable to the health effects of tobacco use. Get more Maine facts and statistics.
