After Tobacco: What Would Happen if Americans Stopped Smoking?

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- To coincide with a new book recently released by Columbia University Press titled, After Tobacco: What Would Happen if Americans Stopped Smoking?, public health experts will discuss what the nation might look like if and when smoking rates plummet to historic lows. Our panel of experts will consider the social and economic impact of reducing smoking rates and what it will take to reach current national public health goals.

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WHY: Over the last ten years, policymakers and public health advocates have taken great – and sometimes controversial – measures to help fight the tobacco epidemic that kills more than 400,000 people every year in the United States. Higher cigarette taxes, expanded clean air laws, smoking cessation and prevention campaigns and programs, new federal regulatory authority over tobacco as well as reduced harm products have potential consequences and benefits for all Americans. Until recently, no study has responded to these concerns by capturing the impact of tobacco control across the nation.

WHO:

• Dr. Nora D. Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Dr. Jed E. Rose, Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research, Duke University Medical Center
• Dr. David Levy, contributing author of After Tobacco and a Senior Scientist with Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation
• Dr. Pebbles Fagan, Associate Professor and Program Director, Prevention and Control University of Hawaii Cancer Center
• Moderated by Dr. David Abrams, Executive Director of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at Legacy^®

WHEN: Wednesday, October 19, 2011, 12:30 Noon to 2:00 P.M., ET
Legacy - 1724 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036

The panel will be available via webcast at www.legacyforhealth.org or www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=82819 starting at 12:25 p.m. prior to program start.

Legacy is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the national public health organization helps American live longer, healthier lives. Legacy develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco, through grants, technical assistance and training, partnerships, youth activism, and counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns. The foundation's programs include truth^®, a national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as having contributed to significant declines in youth smoking; EX^®, an innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; and research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Visit http://www.legacyforhealth.org/.

SOURCE Legacy