The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas is a group of nonprofit health organizations and institutions with a mission to improve the health of Arkansas by reducing the burden caused by tobacco.
1. The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas believes tobacco use and exposure are harmful to health and causes illness, disease and death.
1.1. Tobacco use is the number one cause of death in Arkansas.
1.2. Tobacco use is responsible for more deaths than alcohol, auto accidents, AIDS, suicides, murders and illegal drugs combined.
1.3. Most health risks associated with smoking are reduced or eventually eliminated when smoking abstinence is maintained.
1.4. The exposure to nicotine from spit tobacco is similar in magnitude to nicotine exposure from cigarette and cigar smoke.
2. The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas believes secondhand smoke is a serious health threat to nonsmokers as well as smokers.
2.1. Secondhand smoke is the third leading cause of preventable death in this country.
2.2. Secondhand smoke causes cancer, heart disease and stroke. Secondhand smoke in children causes asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, meningitis, middle ear infections, chronic respiratory symptoms and low birth weight.
2.3. Secondhand smoke harms the health and reduces the productivity of nonsmokers, costing employers money.
3. The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas believes government not only has the right, but responsibility to enact tobacco free policies, ordinances and legislation.
3.1. All workers deserve the right to breathe clean indoor air and should not have to be exposed to health risks from tobacco smoke in the workplace.
3.2. A smoking ban in the workplace ensures that every worker will have a safe and healthy place to work.
3.3. Regulation is a tool to changing the culture in making smoking socially unacceptable. By influencing health, we will change attitudes, behaviors and beliefs.
3.4. Clean indoor air ordinances are public health ordinances. Local governments not only have they right, they have the responsibility to enact them.
3.5. Clean indoor air ordinances do not regulate people, they regulate behavior, therefore are not discriminatory. We are not telling people they can not smoke, we are asking them not to smoke in a way that harms others.
3.6. The drop in smoking rates caused by increased cigarette taxes has saved lives, reduces human suffering, promotes public health and prevents more kids from becoming addicted to smoking or ultimately dying from it.
3.7. Because higher tobacco taxes result in higher cigarette prices, they prevent and reduce smoking among all income groups. A tobacco tax works most powerfully to prompt lower income smokers to quit or cutback and to stop lower income kids from ever starting. As a result, low income families and communities will not be the victims of any tobacco tax increase but its biggest beneficiaries.
3.8. Adequate attention should be given not only to economic considerations but to the health consequences of tobacco use. Health is an essential foundation to any society and a fundamental human right.
3.9. Initiated Act 1 (CHART plan) is Arkansas’ plan for the appropriate spending of the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. The Tobacco Prevention & Cessation piece of Initiated Act 1 should remain intact and spent as the citizens voted.
4. The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas believes public education can help reduce and prevent tobacco use.
4.1. As Arkansans become more educated, the healthier they will be.
4.2. Prevention is less costly than treating tobacco related illnesses and disease.
4.3. Public education counters the effect of pro-tobacco messages.
5. The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas believes when youth are educated about the dangers of tobacco they are more likely to make healthy, informed choices.
5.1. Adults do not make the decision to start smoking. Children do. The younger a person starts to smoke, the more highly addicted the individual will become, the longer the person will smoke and the more likely it is that the person will die of a tobacco related disease.
5.2. By deglamorizing tobacco use, Arkansans will have an increased awareness about tobacco’s negative health and social consequences.
6. The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas believes the key to reducing the tobacco burden in Arkansas is through local efforts.
6.1. Given that tobacco use is the largest preventable cause of premature death in the Arkansas, reducing tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure should be important goals in all Arkansas communities.
7. The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas believes tobacco is harmful to all populations.
7.1. Healthy public policy should aim to close the health gap between the disadvantaged and the more advantaged in society.
7.2. Increasing the awareness of the dangers of tobacco among all cultures and ethnicities is crucial in reducing the tobacco burden in Arkansas.
