Smoking and the military: What do YOU think?
Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in combat zones are under enough stress already, and they don’t need someone pushing them to quit smoking. That’s according to Defense Secretary Roberts Gates, who would still like to “move toward” a tobacco-free military.
In this story by our former Daily Press colleague Bill McMichael, Gates shares the concern expressed in a new report about how tobacco harms America’s military readiness. The report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies called for eliminating tobacco sales at all military installations and a date-specific time when the armed forces are tobacco free.
We’ve linked to the McMichael piece and an executive summary of the institute’s report is below.
I’d like the blogosphere to weigh in on this one. I’m preparing a story about anti-smoking activities at our local military bases and Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. I’d like to fill out the story with comments from bloggers, so let me know what you think and you might end up in print.
Is the prevalence of smoking a problem? Is it easier to smoke on deployment? f you want to quit smoking, are you provided with options?
Some statistics to chew on while you give it a think:
The rate of smoking remains higher in the military overall than in the general population. In 2005, 32 percent of all active-duty military and 22 percent of veterans smoked, compared with just over 20 percent of the U.S. adult population.
That said, tobacco use varies greatly among the services. It is highest in the Army and Marines — 37.3 percent and 35.7 percent, respectively — while the Air Force was 23.2 percent. These figures are from 1998, but that’s the most recent data we could find in the study.
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