Opinion/Fitzgerald: A disappointing report card for Rhode Island providencejournal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from providencejournal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
January 29, 2021
Statewide Iowa A new report card on tobacco control from the American Lung Association ranks Iowa in five main categories, giving the state an “F” in four of them.
Kristina Hamilton, the agency’s director of advocacy in Iowa, says one of the key items is how much the state spends on tobacco prevention programs. Iowa is investing four-million dollars a year on efforts like Quit Line Iowa.
(As above) “This is crucial funding to really help chip away at the adult and youth smoking rate and the e-cigarette usage rate,” Hamilton says. “The CDC recommends the spending be at $30-million so we’re at about 17% of the CDC-recommended level.”
Reformed smoker Didier Faugerv pictured with his son Lucien.
“I started smoking when I was just 15 as everyone around me smoked,” says the 43-year-old, who is originally from France. “My father had a bar and also sold tobacco, so smoking was a normal part of life and I followed the crowd as I believed it was the cool thing to do.
“From the beginning I was smoking about 10 cigarettes a day and then when I reached the age of 20, I doubled that and would smoke a pack each day. As I got older, I knew it wasn’t doing me any good. I had difficulty breathing, would get out of breath after just a few minutes of exercise, I lost my sense of smell and couldn’t taste the good things in life, so I wanted to stop.