As a lung cancer specialist, I continue to see the toll that tobacco use takes on my patients. We know that tobacco use causes one-third of all cancer deaths, as well as many other chronic health problems ranging from heart disease to emphysema.
The good news is that most tobacco users I meet want to quit. External factors, like price, can help influence someone's decision to finally put down their cigarettes or other tobacco products for good.
Since Minnesota's 2013 tobacco tax increase, adult smoking rates have dropped from 16 percent to 14 percent. That tax increase will help more than 36,000 Minnesota smokers quit and will save more than 25,700 Minnesotans from premature smoking-related deaths.
I was so disappointed to see Minnesota lawmakers put the interests of the tobacco industry ahead of the health of Minnesota with a tax bill that gave a $32 million future tax break to Big Tobacco. Keeping the cost of tobacco down will not help my patients, will not help our state, and will certainly not help our pocketbooks.
When Gov. Mark Dayton pocket vetoed the tax bill, he did what was right for Minnesota. I hope the legislature will remember the interests of Minnesota, not the tobacco industry lobbyists, if it goes into a special session.
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Aaron Mansfield
Rochester
