While smoking rate falls in Minnesota, it is rising elsewhere in world, thanks to Big Tobacco's efforts
Minnesotans are smoking less — much less — than they were three decades ago, a new University of Minnesota study has found.
Great news for us. But terrible news for people living in developing countries. For as the market for cigarettes shrinks in Minnesota (and elsewhere in the United States and the developed world), multinational tobacco firms are turning to emerging markets to acquire new nicotine addicts and keep their profits growing.
And they’re apparently making sure the governments of these countries don’t get in their way. Using aggressive lobbying, threats of lawsuits, charitable donations and even outright payoffs. Big Tobacco is successfully blocking smoking reforms in fast-growing developing countries across the globe, a new investigation from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has found. The smoke is clearing in Minnesota. First, the good news from Minnesota. According to the latest Minnesota Heart Survey, which has been tracking trends in cardiovascular risk factors in the Twin Cities since 1980, the number of adult smokers aged 25 to 74 years old in the seven-country Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area has been sliced in half during the past three decades.
In 1980, some 32.8 percent of men and 32.7 percent of women in the Twin Cities smoked. In 2009 — the year of the most recent Minnesota Heart Survey — those percentages had fallen to 15.5 percent (men) and 12.2 percent (women). The decrease occurred among all socio-economic groups, but it was greatest among people with higher incomes and higher education. The percentage of current smokers among men with more than a high school education, for example, dropped from 29 percent in 1980 to 11 percent in 2009. Among men whose education ended before college, the decrease went from 42 percent to 31 percent.
Minnesotans are smoking less — much less — than they were three decades ago, a new University of Minnesota study has found.
Great news for us. But terrible news for people living in developing countries. For as the market for cigarettes shrinks in Minnesota (and elsewhere in the United States and the developed world), multinational tobacco firms are turning to emerging markets to acquire new nicotine addicts and keep their profits growing.
And they’re apparently making sure the governments of these countries don’t get in their way. Using aggressive lobbying, threats of lawsuits, charitable donations and even outright payoffs. Big Tobacco is successfully blocking smoking reforms in fast-growing developing countries across the globe, a new investigation from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has found. The smoke is clearing in Minnesota. First, the good news from Minnesota. According to the latest Minnesota Heart Survey, which has been tracking trends in cardiovascular risk factors in the Twin Cities since 1980, the number of adult smokers aged 25 to 74 years old in the seven-country Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area has been sliced in half during the past three decades.
In 1980, some 32.8 percent of men and 32.7 percent of women in the Twin Cities smoked. In 2009 — the year of the most recent Minnesota Heart Survey — those percentages had fallen to 15.5 percent (men) and 12.2 percent (women). The decrease occurred among all socio-economic groups, but it was greatest among people with higher incomes and higher education. The percentage of current smokers among men with more than a high school education, for example, dropped from 29 percent in 1980 to 11 percent in 2009. Among men whose education ended before college, the decrease went from 42 percent to 31 percent.
