LAKE COUNTY — Released Wednesday, the American Lung Association’s “State of Tobacco Control” 2019 report lauds California as the highest-ranked state when it comes to policies curbing tobacco use, yet a companion report gives Lake County failing grades.
In no category did Lake County’s tobacco use policies score above an “F” in the California ALA’s “California Local Grades” report. No policy change had been noted from last year, said Northern California ALA Advocacy Manager Stephanie Frazier.
Clearlake and Lakeport also failed the ALA’s grading system this year, though both cities received “D” grades for outdoor tobacco smoke control policies.
While the ALA study takes only policies into account when grading governments on tobacco control, Frazier said that “these grades really reflect public health outcomes,” as policies show “the amount of protection for citizens in the county” from tobacco. Frazier said there is a correlation between stronger anti-tobacco policies and better public health.
In order to raise their grades, Frazier said, policymakers need to pass regulations that control tobacco use. The ALA uses an online database of its own to determine the “most current, recognized criteria for effective tobacco control measures.”
California, the ALA states, “again leads the nation in efforts to reduce and prevent tobacco use, though much work remains to be done.”
Meanwhile, according to ALA analysis of the California local report, “half of California’s population still live in communities scoring a D or F.” The local report grades all 482 cities and 58 counties in California. Six percent of Californians live in communities with an “A” grade.
Smoke control in dining areas, at public events, in jails, on sidewalks, at worksites, and in parks is taken into account when grading the outdoor air policies in a community. Nonsmoking apartments, condos, and common areas are considered when grading a local government’s efforts to reduce smoking at home.
Licensing of tobacco retailers is also taken into account in the report. In Clearlake, an urgency ordinance that has effectively served as a moratorium on new tobacco vendors in the city has been in effect since mid-2018, as this newspaper has reported, yet Clearlake tallied no points in this category.
One Lake County policy that scored points in the report is the Lake County Jail’s no-smoking regulation, passed in 1990.
In Lakeport and Clearlake, no-smoking policies are in effect for parks and other public places like playgrounds and recreation centers.
Lake County’s Tobacco Education Program could not be reached for comment on the report Thursday. Part of a statewide system, the program seeks to better education about tobacco-related dangers and to develop “smoke-free policies.”
A 2018 report from a tobacco control research center at UC San Diego showed that programs like this, which receive grant funding from the state, often lead to lower rates of tobacco use at schools in their purview.
The state-level ALA report expresses concern about nationwide increases in e-cigarette and vaping. President and CEO Harold Wimmer wrote in a statement that “e-cigarette use increased by a staggering 78 percent among high school students from 2017 to 2018, and ore than 1 million additional kids began to use e-cigarettes in the past year.”
“More aggressive action by our country’s federal and state policymakers is urgently required” to change this trend, Wimmer wrote.
