Maine earns all A’s in tobacco war Lung association keeps score

AUGUSTA – Maine, which a decade ago had the nation’s highest teen smoking rate, has become the first state to win a perfect score from the American Lung Association for its tobacco-fighting efforts.

The health group awarded Maine A grades in four categories in its fourth ranking of states.

While Maine gained straight A’s for tobacco prevention funding, smoke-free air, cigarette taxes and youth access, most states received F grades in the first category.

Gov. John Baldacci planned a news conference Tuesday with other health advocates to mark the distinction for Maine, where 39 percent of high school students surveyed in 1996 said they were smokers.

“In the 1990s Maine had one of the highest youth smoking rates in the country among teenagers – and between 1997 and 2005 it declined almost 60 percent,” said John Kirkwood, president of the American Lung Association.

Edward Miller, who heads the lung association’s Maine chapter, credited Maine’s comprehensive approach to tobacco control, which has been held up as a national model. Maine spends more of the money it has won in tobacco suit settlements than any other state, per capita, on smoking control and treatment, Miller said.

Gaining the distinction of having the nation’s highest rate of young adult smokers in 1996 “was really a wake-up call for public health organizations,” said Miller. “This was a number one position we didn’t want to be in.”

The report card praises Maine for laws that restrict smoking at work sites and schools and ban it in bars and restaurants. It also cites the state for laws making it difficult for minors to get cigarettes. It makes special mention of Maine’s cigarette tax, which was doubled from $1 to $2 last year, the largest tobacco tax increase among the states in 2005.

The payoff will be lives saved and diseases prevented, Miller said.

Maine’s grades contrasted sharply with those of the United States as a whole, which received F scores for Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco, programs to quit smoking, and for cigarette taxes, which are 39 cents for a pack of 20. The national grade was D in the fourth category, which dealt with the global anti-tobacco treaty known as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The United States signed it in 2004, but it has yet to be sent to the Senate for ratification.

The annual report cards were announced as the lung association kicked off its Smoke-free Air 2010 Challenge, which urges state and local officials to pass laws to prevent secondhand smoke. The research and advocacy group’s report cards show the most significant progress in the area of smoke-free air.

But 40 states, including all New England states except Maine and Vermont, received an F grade for anti-tobacco program funding. Maine is among five states, along with Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington, that have taxes of at least $2 a pack.