3,000 kids start smoking every day; one-third of them will die of a smoking related illness.

Illinois Tobacco Free Communities Grant

     The Illinois Tobacco Free Communities Grant program is the direct result of a $10 million appropriation from the General Assembly to the Illinois Department of Public Health to support local health departments in implementing tobacco prevention and control activities in their communities. 
     The entire appropriation had been allocated to local health departments based on a formula which provides each agency with a $30,000 base, with remaining funds allocated on a per-capita basis.  The General Assembly has made it clear that this appropriation is for one year only.  There is no guarantee that it will be renewed or extended. 
     However, the Wayne County Health Department has recently received notification that Tobacco funding will be increased for the next fiscal year, but the amount to be increased has not yet been determined.                                                                                   The Illinois Tobacco Free Communities Grant allocates monies for several programs included here, but not limited to, Freedom From Smoking, Smoke Free, That's Me!, and Tobacco Users Intervention for Oral Health Practitioners, and Illinois Smoke Free Restaurant Recognition.

• At least 4.5 million adolescents are current smokers.
  
• People who begin smoking at an early age are more likely to develop severe levels of nicotine addiction than those who start at a later age.
  
• Tobacco use primarily begins in early adolescence, typically by age 16; almost all first use occurs before the time of high school graduation.  Nicotine is an addictive drug, which when inhaled in cigarette smoke reaches the brain faster than drugs that enter the body intravenously.  Smokers become now only physically addicted to nicotine; they also link smoking with many social activities, making smoking a difficult habit to break.
  
• Approximately 22.3 million American women are smokers.  Current female smokers aged 35 years old or older are 12 times for likely to die prematurely from lung cancer than nonsmoking females.  More American women die annually from lung cancer than any other type of cancer.
  
• Tobacco advertising plays an important role in encouraging young people to begin a lifelong addiction to smoking before they are old enough to fully understand its long-term health risk.
  
• It is estimated that 4.5 million U.S. teenagers are cigarette smokers; 22.4 percent of high school seniors smoke on a daily basis, and approximately 90 percent of smokers begin smoking before the age of 21.
  
• Employers have a legal right to restrict smoking in the workplace, or implement a totally smoke-free workplace policy.