Tobacco use in the Air Force

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Brian Agee
  • 9th Aerospace Medicine Squadron commander
BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  It is encouraging to see the impressive shift in the United States regarding tobacco use. I can recall going to see my doctor as a child and having him in the exam room smoking his cigar. We used to see smoking in the workplace, restaurants, airplanes, cars, TV commercials, movies, and all throughout society.

Through a wide variety of efforts, including policy change, laws controlling sales, scientific evidence, taxes, and education, we have shifted behaviors. The goal has been to protect vulnerable populations not to persecute smokers.

Adults realize that smoking places individuals at higher risk for poor health outcomes including heart disease, emphysema, cancer and other diseases. Additionally, at one pack of cigarettes per day, the economic cost of smoking is close to $1,800 per year. The latest mortality data from 2010 attributes over 400,000 deaths to tobacco per year.

In the Air Force, we are working toward implementation of Air Force Instruction 40-102, which identifies Designated Tobacco Areas and directs usage of them. This AFI creates a stand-off distance between the tobacco areas and medical patients, children, walkways, and parking lots. As such, the medical campus on base is now tobacco-free.

It is my hope that in 30 years, we will have people who are surprised that anyone ever used tobacco on a military base. To paraphrase an old tobacco ad, "We've come a long way, baby!"