Smoking in the Military

Smoking in the Military

The U.S. military has a culture of tobacco use, which decades of tobacco industry targeting have helped create and support. This culture has driven smoking rates to be significantly higher among service members than the rest of the population and impaired military readiness.

I recall, at 17 years old, entering the Air Force, being in basic training. In the beginning, I suppose it likes being imprisoned 23 hours a day in dorms? They yell at you and make you do choirs cleaning the toilets shit like that. The only time you left the dorms was for marches, classes, and exercise. Yeah, like that! Then while you are in the dorm cleaning, the training instructor will come in the dorm-like every 2 hours and tell the smokers to go smoke ’em if you got them. This means they can go outside under trees and smoke cigarettes in peace. No Training Instructor (TI)shoot the crab with other smokers. While I and many blacks that did not smoke stayed I. The dorm buffing floors, cleaning toilets, you get the pictures. It did not take long for me and a friend to say, damn, this let me smoke even though I hated cigarettes. I went to the Bx bought a pack of old-school Benson and hedges, and the next time they said smoke break smoke ’em. If you got it, I was ready. I did this along with my friend cal about 4 to 5 times a day for at least 6 weeks. Obviously habit of smoking developed, and the same continued to happen in trade school. Although it had more liberty during school, the mantra smokes ’em if you got ’em; after about six weeks, I went home, smoke much, and replaced B&H. Then I went to my first duty station, and if you smoke, they made special considerations. After a year, I hated being addicted to squares, the slang for cigarettes. I quit and said this ain’t cool coughing.

I lost touch with Cal, and I heard he did his 6 years in the Air Force and got honorably discharged. I remained 22 years after retirement, talking to some old friend. Cal struggled throughout his life with that cigarettes and died of lung cancer. This started when we were both 17 and years of attempting to get Veterans benefits denied because he could not prove it was service-related. I was the Air Force co-signed on cigarettes and pushed smoking that has caused numerous deaths, and because we can’t tie it directly, veterans are homeless dying and fighting Cancer. Thanks To the military, you unintentionally promoted smoking and now sit back and watch veterans suffer with bronchitis, sleep apnea , CPD, heart disease, stroke and the list goes on and on.

Until April 2017, tobacco products were sold at discounted rates on military bases. While the allowed discount was supposed to be 5 percent below local prices, one study found that the discounts were often much more than that, with as much as a 73 percent discount and a mean discounted rate of 25 percent on base, compared with prices at surrounding off-base stores. Now, tobacco products cannot be sold at prices less than the most competitive price in the local community.

Although the military has attempted to implement tobacco control initiatives, the association between smoking and military personnel has persisted today as smoking rates remain high, despite declines in civilian rates. Such high rates have led to questions about the effect of smoking, from the apparent health risks to troop readiness and training costs.

I can only imagine in today’s world, 2021, this past behavior of the military toward cigarettes should get corrected. Cigarette manufactures have been sued for billions, our own government refuses to accept the responsibility of providing care or assistance for those it leads down the path of a lifetime habit.

Vaping now appears to be more common in the military than smoking regular cigarettes.

further evidence of a culture change in encouragement of cigarette usage is the rate of smoking among military service members has plummeted in recent years and now appears to be lower than the general civilian population at large, according to an analysis of the most recent survey of troops’ regarding their health-related behaviors.

Across the service branches, 7.4 percent of service members smoked cigarettes daily in 2015, compared with 12.9 percent of adults in the general population, according to the results of the most recent Defense Department Health-Related Behaviors Survey of Active-Duty Service Members.

 

We can do better if you ever say thank you for your service. We must provide VA care and  compensation for this indirect harm to our veterans. Honor our service member by admitting to their atrocities inflected for decades. Contact your elected officials!