Mississippi now has 40 communities with comprehensive smoke-free ordinances

We have just released our latest fact sheet on smoke-free Mississippi communities. We now have 40 communities that have passed comprehensive smoke-free ordinances, and 19.84% of our state's population lives in one of these 40 communities.

Changes to Mississippi Tobacco Data dot Org

We've updated the In The News section of our website to include links to our social media tools. The link to twitter tracks media coverage of tobacco control issues, the blog provides updates about tobacco data in Mississippi, and Google realtime lets you see up-to-the-second social updates, news articles and blog posts about tobacco control topics around the world.

Per Capita Consumption of Cigarettes

One of the CDC's Key Outcome Indicators for evaluating tobacco control programs is the per capita consumption of cigarettes. As can be seen from this chart, Mississippi's per capita consumption has been higher than that of the U.S. as a whole since 1991. The U.S. has experienced a steady decline since the early '80s, while the downward trend in Mississippi appears to have stalled twice over the past two decades. The good news is that there was a substantial drop from 2009 to 2010. Although it is too soon to determine if this a trend or simply a one-year blip, this decrease is exciting.


Note that the blue line represents Mississippi and the red line represents the U.S.

Curious about emerging tobacco products?

Visit this wiki to learn more. Watch this blog next week for a post on the prevalence of use of these products among Mississippi youth and adults.

More than 500 trillion molecules of strong carcinogens per cigarette: use in product labelling?

From Tobacco Control

Therefore, after appropriate message testing, the following wording could be used in cigarette package labelling: ‘the smoke of each cigarette contains more than 500 trillion strong carcinogen molecules’. This may provide a strong cautionary note and lead to abstinence, cessation and avoidance of secondhand smoke.

Stephen S Hecht

Tobacco Use among Mississippi Youth

Cigarette smoking has declined dramatically in Mississippi over the past 10 years, and a recent post illustrates these trends in current cigarette smoking and initiation of cigarette smoking. In the space below, we provide the trends of initiating use of cigarettes, cigars, or smokeless tobacco products and current use of at least one of these products.

Latest Map of Smoke-Free Mississippi Communities

We've updated our map to include the latest communities to pass smoke-free laws. There are now 39 Mississippi communities with comprehensive smoke-free laws.

Limited Progress

First, the good news. The Palace Casino in East Biloxi will become the first Mississippi casino voluntarily go smoke-free. On Tuesday General Manager Keith Crosby announced smoking won’t be permitted anywhere in the building except in the smoking lounge adjacent to the casino floor. Hopefully, other casinos in this state will follow suit.

Next, the limited good news. Olive Branch has passed an ordinance the restricts smoking inside of public indoor places. However, the exemptions in this ordinance continue to allow smoking in indoor public places. Restaurants with bars may allow smoking after 9 p.m. Also exempt from the ban are bars that only allow patrons more than 21 years old. These exemptions mean that employees and nonsmokers will continue to be exposed in Olive Branch. Moreover, children who dine at restaurants with bars will be exposed to the toxic remnants of post-9:00 smoking (thirdhand smoke).