Truth or Consequences: There’s no disputing the negative effects od smoking, but that doesn’t make it any easier for people to quit
By Terry Rindfleisch of the Tribune staff
Judie Moe paid the ultimate price for smoking cigarettes.
Moe continued to smoke her cigarettes for almost two weeks before she died on Thanksgiving Day 2002. She was 58 years old. She died of cancer because of her tobacco addiction.
She tried to quit smoking many times, but she ran out of time trying to quit. In the end, she knew if she finally quit for good, it would be too late for her.
Moe knew it was not too late for teenagers and many adults to quit smoking and save themselves. She worked with the La Crosse Area Health Initiative and spoke to children and teens at La Crosse area schools about the dangers of tobacco use.
“I'd like to quit more than anybody, but I just can't,'” Moe said in a Tribune interview before her death. “Every day of my life I wished I could have quit. I'll try again, but I think the only way to stop smoking for me is death.''
Moe had cancer of the mouth, and most of her mouth had been surgically removed and reconstructed. She also had undergone chemotherapy and radiation. She smoked at least a pack or two of cigarettes a day for most of her adult life and at times smoked three to four packs a day.
“I wish Judie was around for other teens to hear her story because many would never start smoking,” said Al Bliss, health educator for the La Crosse County Health Department who coordinates smoking-related education.
Tobacco use is responsible for almost 87 percent of all lung cancers, the leading cause of death for men and women on the United States. One-third of all cancer deaths are tobacco-related, said Gary Gilmore, a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse professor of community health and member of the Midwest Division of the American Cancer Society’s board of directors.
“Tobacco is the No. 1 preventable risk factor for disease and death,” Gilmore said. “It just boggles the mind. Many people say the No.1 is obesity, but it’s still tobacco.”
Besides the cost to smokers and their families, the cost to society is huge, he said.
Gilmore, chairman of a “Healthy Living Together” subcommittee, said health-care costs related to tobacco use is $1 billion a year, and $200 million of the Medicaid costs are related to tobacco use.
“It’s phenomenal what taxpayers are paying for costs of tobacco use,” he said. “‘All those costs come back to taxpayers.”
When people look at smoking, they think too narrowly, said Dr. Todd Mahr, a Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center pediatrician specializing in asthma and allergy.
“They tend to think exclusively about the individual costs of tobacco, but there are numerous costs, including early death, lost work time and loss of healthy and productive members of families,” said Mahr, chairman of the Wisconsin Asthma Coalition.
“The problem is not all of the costs are recovered,” he said. “Tobacco companies make huge profits, and the total costs to society for those profits is quite high.”
Dr. Daniel Deetz, a Franciscan Skemp Medical Center physician specializing in pulmonary disease, treats a large percentage of his patients whose diseases are related to long-term tobacco use.
“It’s hard for me not to view smoking in negative terms,” Deetz said. “People pay the price for smoking in many different ways. In the end, our society pays the price.”
Deetz said nicotine is as incredibly addictive as cocaine or narcotics. He said his older patients did not fully realize the addiction potential when they started smoking.
“I view smokers like nicotine has control of them, and they’re victims as well,” Deetz said. “Some people don’t want to quit, but the vast majority do want to quit and it’s our job to help them the best we can.
“We hope to find their disease early enough so they don’t become so significantly disabled,” he said. “It’s sad to see these patients functionally disabled.”
Dr. Roger Kwong, a Gundersen Lutheran cancer specialist and a member of the board of directors of the cancer society’s Midwest Division, said the many costs of tobacco use are not calculated.
“Not every who smokes gets lung cancer, but we still see a lot of lung cancer and advanced disease,” Kwong said. “But there are costs like exposing people around them to secondhand smoke. Those figures are hard to come by, but the costs are still there all the same.”
Susan Lundsten, wellness education specialist in community and preventive care services at Gundersen Lutheran, said smokers who gone through smoking cessation programs comment on how the "cost of smoking" has brought them to where they are today.
“Financial costs can be a very motivating factor for some people,” Lundsten said.
Some people who have quit have saved up the money that they would have spent on tobacco and purchased something they always have wanted, or treated themselves to something special - a new car, new clothes, a massage, a day at the spa, she said.
“Others take great pride in what they are doing for their own health and their family's health by quitting,” Lundsten said. “The cost of their own health and their family's health is priceless.”
Alicia Elsing, co-coordinator of the Mayo Nicotine Research Program at Franciscan Skemp, said she is struck by how smoking is interwined with everything in a smoker’s life.
“Ever part of the day is centered around smoking,” Elsing said. “Smokers don’t realize it until they quit smoking.”
Sharon Schulz, a registered nurse and co-coordinator of the Mayo Nicotine Research Program, said many smokers quit for health reasons.
“They are concerned about lung cancer, but they are more aware of how smoking affects the other parts of the body and cause other chronic diseases,” Schulz said. “They are much more aware of the costs to them and society.”
Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com or (608) 791-8227.
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