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A Message from the Executive Director
Tobacco use in the United States results
in over 450,000 deaths per year —
a greater toll in human life than that exacted by car accidents,
suicides, drug and alcohol use, murders, and HIV/AIDS combined.
In monetary terms, tobacco use results in over $75 billion
in public and private health care costs each year, and reduces
the productivity of Americans by $80 billion per year. If
current trends go unchecked, American taxpayers will continue
to pay on a yearly basis more than $500 per household to finance
the social costs of tobacco use, and more than 6 million people
now under the age of 18 will die from the effects of tobacco.
In Virginia alone, people spend more
than $1.5 billion on tobacco-use-related health care, and
over 9,000 people die each year from tobacco-use-related illnesses.
Once people form the tobacco habit,
they usually find it extremely difficult to quit — because
the nicotine that tobacco delivers to the body is one of the
most addictive substances known. So, to curtail tobacco’s
enormous and tragic burden on our public health and welfare
it is essential that we find more reliable ways to help people
kick the habit, and more importantly, to prevent young people
from becoming tobacco users in the first place.
Fortunately, the Commonwealth of Virginia
has wisely shouldered the responsibility to seek solutions,
by establishing a formidable base of scientific research and
evaluation on tobacco addiction and prevention, and by allocating
a portion of its proceeds from the Master Settlement Agreement
with tobacco product manufacturers to tobacco-use prevention
initiatives.
With core funding from the Virginia
Tobacco Settlement Foundation, the Virginia Youth Tobacco
Project has set forth a reseach and
evaluation initiative to determine answers to the following
questions:
• Why and how do young people
begin using tobacco?
• Why do a significant number
become addicted to the nicotine in tobacco
products?
• How can we offer truly effective
intervention programs to reduce the
incidence of tobacco use and addiction among
Virginia's youths?
In seeking answers to these questions,
we at Virginia Commonwealth University are proud to be leaders
in Virginia’s effort to lift the scourge of tobacco
from the people of the Commonwealth.
Earl
Dowdy
Executive Director
Virginia Youth Tobacco Project
Virginia Commonwealth University
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