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Smoke Out: Examining the real cost of tobacco use

Volume 100, Issue 3

Nearly 1 million Wisconsin adults smoke. And despite anti-smoking efforts during the past 15 years, there is almost no change in the prevalence of adult smokers today. In fact, there are more 18- to 24-year-old smokers now than there were in 1994. This issue of WMJ takes an in-depth look at tobacco use and its cost to the health of the people of Wisconsin.

View the archived Wisconsin Medical Journal volumes here.
























Editorials

All you ever wanted to know about tobacco

Thomas C. Meyer, MD, WMJ Medical Editor

June was Men’s Health month. I believe it because Dr. Alt told me when we were discussing his guest editorial (p 8), but I did not see anything else about men’s health amongst all the Father’s Day promotions. It lends credence to Dr. Alt’s view that we really ought to be taking more interest in the fact that there is a widening “life expectancy gap” between men and women (2.2 years in 1920 vs 6 years in 1998) although the overall expectation of life is increasing. Dr. Alt weaves the thread of “traditional masculinity” as one of the principal underlying factors for this increasing disparity and offers advice as to how we may make a modest personal start on trying to reverse this trend. The rest of the issue is devoted to tobacco dependence. It is fascinating to see how many ways it is possible to study a single, albeit complex, addiction that grips almost one-quarter of the people in the United States.


Author Affiliations: WMJ Medical Editor

Corresponding Author: Please address correspondence to the Wisconsin Medical Society