Smoking deaths drop; Hawaii has second-lowest rate

Hawaii spends $11 million a year to prevent tobacco use, and that investment is paying off. The state now has the second-lowest smoking-related death rate in the nation, according to a new federal study, Deborah Zysman, executive director of the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Hawaii, told the media in January. Click here for the Honlulu Star-Bulletin’s report.   

The study found Hawaii has 167.6 deaths from smoking per year per 100,000 population, second only to Utah, which has a death rate of 138.3 per 100,000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study which examined smoking deaths and years of potential life lost from 2000 to 2004.

"What that means, however, is annually for Hawaii it's an estimated 1,160 lives lost per year," Zysman said. Smoking deaths in Hawaii were up to 1,200 and 1,300 per year in the 1990s. Zysman attributes the drop to prevention programs to help people quit smoking. "These programs are clearly working,” she said. “We need to continue funding them."

Hawaii is not spending the $15.2 million per year recommended by the CDC for tobacco cessation programs. But the $11 million allocated "is way better than a lot of states," Zysman said. Many states have raided their multimillion-dollar tobacco settlement funds to help deal with dire economic problems and the coalition is concerned about retaining its prevention funding as legislators wrestle with Hawaii's critical economy.