Cancer Down in California as Smoking Rates Plummet

Lung cancer down 19.5%; Smoking rates down 27%

Parts excerpted from the Sacramento Bee, 11/18/03, smokefree.net

SACRAMENTO -- Cancers caused by tobacco-- both first hand and secondhand-- have dropped dramatically in California in the past 12 years, a sign that the state's award-winning smokefree ad campaign and popular smokefree workplace law have had enormous health benefits, a new state report has found.

The report by the state Department of Health Services found that between 1988 and 1999, tobacco-caused cancers fell 12 percent among men and 8 percent among women in California.  Lung cancer, the disease most associated with smoking, fell 19.5 percent.

"Seeing dramatic results like these is proof that what we have done here in California has worked," said Diana Bonta, state health director. "We are seeing the health benefits now."

The results resulted from voter passage in 1988 of Proposition 99, which taxes tobacco products to pay for tobacco control programs.

Bonta said sweeping smokefree workplace laws in California that eliminated smoking in most public places, restaurants, and bars are a large part of the success story.

The newly released report looked at rates of nine types of cancer related to tobacco use, in various degrees. They include cancers of the lung, larynx, mouth, esophagus, bladder, pancreas, kidney, stomach and cervix.

The most dramatic reduction in cancer rates in California showed up in lung cancers, the #1 cancer-killer of both men and women. Between 1988 and 1999, lung cancer rates in California dropped 19.5 percent, from 71.9 cases per 100,000 people to 57.9 in 1999.

California's cancer case rate in 1999 was more than 10 percent lower than in the rest of the United States.

The report released last week also found that the program's benefits are unfortunately not enjoyed equally. Poor Californians and those with less education smoke far more than affluent people and those who are better educated. 

African Americans had the highest smoking rates in 2000 and are therefore most affected by tobacco-caused cancers. The mortality rate for tobacco-caused cancers is 30 percent higher for African American men than for white men and 20 percent higher for African American women than among white women.