- Annually, smoking costs Minnesota over $3 billion in health care costs.1
- The tobacco industry spends more than $100 million a year to market its products in Minnesota.2
- The average cost of a pack of cigarettes in Minnesota is $5.58 – while each pack smoked in Minnesota costs an estimated $8.85 in medical expenses and lost productivity.3,4
- Whether it’s family, friends, coworkers or neighbors – maybe even the person who means the most – tobacco use leads to over 6,000 deaths in Minnesota a year.1
- In Minnesota, 580,000 moms, dads, sons, daughters, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles continue to smoke.5
- Children of smokers are almost twice as likely to smoke as children of nonsmokers.6,7
- Smoking causes coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.8
- Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and reducing the health of smokers in general.8
- Smoking accounts for an estimated 443,000 deaths each year in the U.S. – that’s nearly one of every five deaths.9,10
- Video games are a $9.4 billion dollar business in the United States, with sales higher than the movie box office.
- Teens often chose video games over television, making games a way to reach a significant audience of potential smokers.
- In the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, cigarettes are given as rewards and cigarette warning labels are mocked.
- Young adults are key market - they are experiencing transition, they experiment and they are influenced by their peers.
- Tobacco companies sponsor events and hire "Cigarette Fairies" to distribute free products in bars and socialize with young adults.
- Through charitable donations, the tobacco industry can claim it’s doing something positive for society – and can protect itself from regulations by arguing charities suffer when tobacco revenues drop.
- One year, Philip Morris spent $100 million on PR to promote its corporate giving – more than the $75 million it spent on the giving itself.
- Historically, free and discounted tobacco has hooked generations of soldiers.
- Smoking rates in the military are significantly higher than in the general population.
- Tobacco companies still send free cases of products to troops serving in the Middle East.
- Regulations preventing direct youth marketing forced a different tactic by tobacco companies.
- Sweet-flavored tobacco products are attractive “starter products” for youth because they “taste better.”
- The FDA banned flavored cigarettes, but “little cigars” and smokeless tobacco are still available in candy and fruit flavors such as peach, grape and chocolate.
- Smokeless tobacco is hard to detect, making it easy to use in places people cannot light up a cigarette.
- Camel Snus comes in tea-bag-like pouches and requires no spitting.
- Other new products resemble candies, mints and breath strips.
1Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. Health Care Costs and Smoking in Minnesota: The Bottom Line. 2017.
2Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/facts_issues/toll_us/minnesota. November 2016.
3Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. Health Care Costs and Secondhand Smoke – The Bottom Line. 2007.
4Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State Data Highlights 2006. Table 4. Smoking-Attributable Costs. Available at here (PDF). Accessed December 22, 2008.
5ClearWay MinnesotaSM, Minnesota Department of Health. Minnesota Adult Tobacco Survey: Tobacco Use in Minnesota – 2014 Update. Minneapolis: 2015.
6Bauman K, et al. Effect of parental smoking classification on the association between parental and adolescent smoking. Addictive Behaviors. 1990;15(5):413-22.
7Kalesan B, et al. The Joint Influence of Parental Modeling and Positive Parental Concern of Cigarette Smoking in Middle and High School Students. Journal of School Health. 2006; 76(8).
8U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health. The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/2004/.
9Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State-Specific Smoking Attributable Mortality and Years of Potential Life Lost – United States, 2000 - 2004. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report [serial online]. 2009;58(2):29-33. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm5802.pdf (PDF).
10Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health United States, 2003, With Chartbook on Trends in the Health of Americans. Hyattsville, MD: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics; 2003. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus.htm.