Tobacco use by pregnant women, 8th graders alarms officials
EUGENE, Ore. - One in 5 pregnant women in Lane County smoke tobacco - as do nearly 1 in 12 8th-grade students, according to county health officials.
Public health officials plan a town hall meeting at the Lane County Juvenile Justice Center at 7 p.m. Wednesday to discuss the problem with the public.
"The first group we want to focus on is pregnant moms," said Dr. Patrick Luedtke, senior public health officer. "Unfortunately the tobacco use rate in Lane County is twice the national average for pregnant women. We're at about 20 percent and the national average is about 10.5 percent."
Lane County Health and Human Services officials call tobacco use the number one preventable cause of death.
An estimated 17 percent of Lane County residents smoke. And some start early: 8 percent of 8th graders report smoking tobacco.
Health officials say something must be done to intervene. One proposal: ban smoking at all Lane County parks and government buildings.
They accomplish their agenda a little bit at a time, that way it is kind of like cooking the frog with slow heating of the water, he is cooked before he knows it. It is called control.
It seems the health officials are so blinded by the "my body , my choice" thing that their solution for stopping pregnant women from smoking is to ban smoking in the parks rather than the obvious thing--ban pregnant women from smoking. The babies with the diminished lung capacity will be glad to know that health officials kept their mothers out of the parks.