Today Is the Great American Smoke Out. What are the Smoking Trends in Mississippi?

For the first time in 15 years more American's are smoking. During today's Great American Smoke Out thousands will try to kick the habit. In health news, MPB's Lawayne Childrey examines one ex-smokers struggle for survival, and what's being done to change the survival rates of the next generation.

For more than 20 years, 53 year old Steve Loudermilk (ladder-milk) of Jackson, smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

“Actually 10 years ago my doctor told me I need to stop smoking because my lungs looked like a 90 year old man.”

He did quit for a while,... but the habit, kept coming back.

“Then ah, two years ago I went to the hospital for two weeks, diagnosed with COPD,Emphysema
and chronic bronchitis.”

That diagnosis was followed by a lung transplant... and a long rehabilitation. Today, Laudermilk is constantly reminded, that smoking cigarettes changed his life.

“You just can’t breathe. I mean I can get up to walk through the house and I’m short of breath before I even get to the end of the house. So it’s detrimental to your health you know, I’m just fortunate to be here.”

In Mississippi there are a number of smoking cessation programs designed to help people quit. But for Laudermilk (ladder-milk) breaking a pack day habit was easier said than done.

“It’s ah, one of the hardest things. Even with your new chemicals and stuff out there, they got the pills and stuff to take. It’s very hard and I think it’s more mind over matter it’s how you have to quit. You have to set your mind to it then do it. And then just stay away from ‘em.”

“Is cigarette good for you? No. And look what it does to your teeth.”

Jacqueline Carter is the Program Director for the Mississippi Free Coalition in Hinds County. It's one of several statewide organizations that give young people the facts about smoking. She encouraging a group of second graders not to start smoking. But she says the message is harder to resonate with the rising number of smoking teens.

“I tell them it’s just death then isn’t, it’s just lung cancer, it’s just asthma or it’s just emphysema. And once I tell them the health effects and I give the education about it then they are more inclined to, ok, I hadn’t thought about it that way. I hadn’t thought about it effecting me maybe in a short term that I could die for this.”

Nationally 20% of adults were smokers in 2008. The number is as high as 22% in Mississippi. Cities across the state have enacted anti smoking laws that ban smoking in public places. Roy Hart with the Mississippi Department of Health Office of Tobacco Control believes they are working, but more could be done.

“In 36 months after Starkville passed its ordinance to prohibit smoking in public places there was a 27% reduction in heart attacks. And that’s very powerful considering the health costs surrounding treating an individual that’s had a heart attack. And then you’d wonder why individuals don’t pursue policy that help protect individuals more vigorously.”

“American Cancer Society , this is Kelly.”

Kelly Lindsay is with the American Cancer Society in Mississippi. She says this year alone more than 4,700 Mississippian's will die from cigarette smoke. That's why she is urging policy makers to consider all the benefits of a smoke free environment.

“One of the memories that really resonates with me, you know complaining continuously to my father about the smell. That I just didn’t like it and it really bothered me. And the facts are that second hand smoke kills. And we do know that now that’s why a lot of cities and states are going smoke free.”

While Steve Loudermilk was addicted to a pack a day his family was also being impacted by the 2nd hand smoke.

“I thank the Good Lord that my kids haven’t got any , had any problems yet because I did smoke around them and I regret every minute of it. I don’t wish this on anybody. It’s not a great life. I’m like the boy in the plastic bubble I feel because I have to take so many antibiotics because I have no immune system. So it’s very hard on me and my family.”

While the road to quitting is not an easy one. Experts say smokers who kick the habit at age 35 could expect to live up to eight and one-half years longer than those who continue to smoke. For MPB News, I'm Lawayne Childrey.