![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/wpdash.medianewsgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-6.png\")
<\/a>U.S. Centers for Disease Control<\/p>\nInstead, heavier smoking is concentrated in the less-wealthy central and northern reaches, including in Santa Ana, Orange, Garden Grove, Anaheim and Fullerton. In the heaviest central Santa Ana neighborhood, 17% of adults were lighting up, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control<\/a>. The higher smoking rates in cities like Garden Grove are driven by lower socioeconomic status and a largely Asian-immigrant population, said David Timberlake, associate professor of population health and disease prevention at UC Irvine.<\/p>\n \u201cResidents originally from Vietnam, for example, have one of the highest smoking rates in California,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Even so, O.C.\u2019s heaviest-smoking areas pale in comparison to swaths of the Inland Empire and Los Angeles counties. In several Long Beach and Los Angeles tracts, smokers comprised about one of five of every adults, and in slivers of San Bernardino, more than one of every three adults.<\/p>\n But step back to ponder the continental United States as a whole, and most of California\u2019s heaviest smoking areas wash out. In most neighborhoods in the poorest states \u2014 Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, West Virginia<\/a> \u2014 at least one of every five adults is a smoker. (The darkest brown areas of the map mean at least 19.3% are smokers.)<\/p>\n The national average is 15.8%. Overall in Orange County, 9.2% are smokers; in Los Angeles County, it\u2019s 11.2%; in Riverside County, 11.5%; and in San Bernardino County, 12.3%, according to the CDC data.<\/p>\n Though smoking has plummeted over recent decades \u2014 in 1965, 42% of adults smoked, including my parents \u2014 it remains the nation\u2019s leading cause of preventable disease, disability and death, according to the CDC.<\/p>\n That\u2019s some 3,000 deaths a year in Orange County, and some 40,000 statewide, attributed to smoking. It costs California some $15.4 billion a year, according to data crunched by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.<\/a><\/p>\n Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, county health officer with the Orange County Health Care Agency, said that the Tobacco Use Prevention Program has helped reduce use by focusing on youth prevention, expanding smoke\u2011free protections, limiting access to tobacco products, running media campaigns and providing cessation services.<\/p>\n Those moves, along with statewide measures \u2014 raising the tobacco sales age to 21, increasing tobacco prices, restricting flavored tobacco sales \u2014 has pushed tobacco use down across many cities throughout Orange County, she said. Some areas, however, continue to have higher rates, due to a complicated combination of factors.<\/p>\n Smoking, the U.S. National Cancer Institute and World Health Organization found, is responsible for a significant share of the health disparities between the rich and poor worldwide.<\/p>\n Big expense<\/p>\n The link between lower incomes and higher smoking poses quite a conundrum.<\/p>\n In addition to being deadly, tobacco is expensive. A single pack of cigarettes averages nearly $12 in California \u2014 far less than in New York, where a pack is $14.55, but far more than in North Carolina, where a pack is $7.95, according to Tobacco Insider.<\/a><\/p>\n The American Lung Association<\/a> says the average daily smoker smokes 15 cigarettes a day.<\/p>\n That\u2019s 5,475 cigarettes a year.<\/p>\n With 20 cigs to a pack, that\u2019s 273 packs.<\/p>\n And at nearly $12 a pop here in California, we\u2019re talking some $3,200 a year, which approaches 10% of earnings for our region\u2019s lower earners.<\/p>\n Smoking is heavily associated with poverty and less formal education, myriad studies have found.<\/p>\n Adults without high school degrees smoke at a rate of 18.3%, according to data from the American Lung Association. Adults with an undergraduate degree smoke at a rate of 4.4%.<\/p>\n Nearly 20% of people living in poverty smoke cigarettes, and they smoke more heavily, and for nearly twice as many years, as those with higher family incomes, the American Lung Association said.<\/p>\n Why do less wealthy people smoke more when they can least afford it? Experts chalk it up to the burden of chronic financial and other stresses; cultural habits and histories; and, perhaps insidiously, targeted tobacco company advertising in poorer neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods have a higher density of tobacco retailers, many studies have found.<\/p>\n Nicotine is a highly addictive stimulant, and addiction is a messy business. On top of the other factors working against them, poor people also tend to have less access to programs and therapies to help them quit, researchers found.<\/p>\n Quitting<\/p>\n The overwhelming majority of smokers want to quit \u2014 nearly 68%, according to one recent survey \u2014 but a mere 8.8% were successful.<\/p>\n Register file photo<\/p>\n A person holds a cigarette in this file photo.<\/p>\n No wonder it\u2019s hard: Nicotine triggers the release of endorphins and dopamine \u2014 the \u201cfeel-good\u201d hormones. But smoking (and vaping) also involve thousands of other chemicals to boost flavor and nicotine absorption, according to the NIH.<\/p>\n \u201cThe impact of smoking on the body is almost all-encompassing. It damages blood vessels, increasing the risk for stroke, heart disease, and heart attack; it can reduce bone density and slow the healing of fractures; it impairs the immune system and increases inflammation; it increases the risk of gum disease; it can decrease fertility in men and women; it accelerates the aging process of the skin; it increases the risk for more than a dozen cancers; and it is the most common cause of lung diseases,\u201d says the American Academy of Medical Colleges.<\/a> No matter how long a person has smoked, quitting will improve health almost immediately. The FDA<\/a> found that carbon monoxide levels, which can displace oxygen to vital organs, can drop back to normal in as soon as 12 hours after not smoking.<\/p>\n Nicotine replacement therapy appears to be essential in kicking the habit. It allows people to wean off the stimulant tolerably.<\/p>\n There are several FDA-approved over-the-counter and prescription therapies including a skin patch, gum, lozenges, nasal spray and an inhaler. They boost the chances of quitting by 50% to 60%. The GLP-1 drugs that are all the rage for weight loss show promise for quieting nicotine cravings as well, researchers are finding.<\/a><\/p>\n She was 68 when she died in 2001. She never got to meet her grandchildren. There are so many things I wish I could ask her.<\/p>\n Please folks, for your health and for your wallet, try to quit. Orange County\u2019s TUPP provides free cessation services for adults and youth through contracted providers throughout the county.\u00a0Call 1-866-NEW-LUNG and\/or see\u00a0https:\/\/bit.ly\/4sAqDfz<\/a> for more help and resources.<\/p>\n Think of the grandchildren you may actually live to see, and that great trip you can take every year with the $3,000 you\u2019ll save!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You probably don\u2019t think of smoking as an equity\/social justice issue. But a quick glance at the map…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1280,4821,100,4720,27143],"class_list":["post-220827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-health-care","tag-medicine","tag-news","tag-public-health","tag-vaping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>U.S. Centers for Disease Control<\/p>\n<\/a>R.J. Renolds\u2019s new, non-menthol Newport cigarettes are displayed for sale at a store in San Francisco\u2019s Mission District on Jan. 7, 2023. Antismoking advocates criticized the marketing campaign as an attempt to circumvent the state\u2019s ban on flavored tobacco products. (Aaron Wojack\/The New York Times)<\/p>\n<\/a>Sforza\u2019s mom, Marie, was a lifelong smoker. She died four days shy of her 69th birthday from lung cancer.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>I so wish my mom had tried harder. She was a lifelong smoker who couldn\u2019t stop \u2014 even after she coughed up blood and the doctor told her that she had precancerous nodules in her lungs. When I was a kid, she\u2019d send me to the deli on my bike to buy her cigarettes. She gave me a few extra cents for Bazooka bubble gum, and I\u2019d pop it all in the plastic-flower-strewn basket of my gold Stingray and pedal the booty home.<\/p>\n