Platte Co. smoking, tobacco use above state average

Fewer teens are drinking, but more are lighting up.
Tobacco and marijuana usage in the four-county area serviced through the East Central District Health Department is equal to the state average.
Half of all high school seniors in the health department service area have said they have used tobacco. Alcohol use still has a higher percentage, with 65 percent of 12th-graders admitting to drinking, but that number has been going down.

Nance County has the highest lifetime tobacco rate of use among high school sophomores and seniors compared to Platte, Boone and Colfax counties. Platte County seniors were 4 percent higher than the state average of 49 percent in admitting to using tobacco.
The figures come from a Comprehensive Community Health Needs Assessment released by ECDHD earlier this year.
Jamie Rodriguez, tobacco prevention coordinator for the health department, said 2,200 Nebraskans die prematurely each year because of cigarette smoking.
“Everyone should be concerned with tobacco use. It can easily rip a family apart, and I have seen firsthand what it can do as I lost my mom to lung cancer when she was only 53,” Rodriguez said.

Her office has focused on public education to help curb tobacco use, specifically targeting school-aged kids.
“Although we are doing a lot to prevent smoking, we still have a lot of work yet to do which will be a result of community collaboration and education of the dangers and risks associated with tobacco use,” Rodriguez said.
The area isn’t alone in the number of kids using tobacco. In America, 3 million high-schoolers smoke, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Teenagers who do smoke will more likely be smokers as adults, too, Rodriguez said. Even just living with a parent who smokes will increase that chance.

“It is a proven fact that if a parent smokes the kids are more likely to smoke,” she said.
Overall, there has been a steady decline in the number of adults smokers in the district. In 2008, 18 percent of those 18 and older said they smoked everyday or some days, according to a health department behavioral risk factor surveillance survey. That number dropped to 14 percent two years later, which is the latest figure that was available from that survey. That put the district below the state’s average of 17 percent.
“I think we are moving in the right direction,” Rodriguez said.
Tobacco isn’t all the kids are smoking. Marijuana use also is on the rise.
The ECDHD’s average marijuana use among high school seniors is lower than the state’s lifetime average of 29 percent. But Platte County stood out with a much higher average than the other three counties with 34 percent of seniors reported having used marijuana. That number is nearly double the 18 percent of tenth-graders in Platte who have used.

Sophomores and seniors in the county also have the highest rate of marijuana use over a 30-day period, 10 percent and 12 percent, respectively, than the district and state average.
Colfax County students try the drug at an earlier age than other counties, with 9 percent of eighth-graders admitting to using at some point in their life.
Information gathered for the community health assessment includes focus group participation. Teens from Schuyler, which is in Colfax County, were part of the focus group information-gathering process. They said “smoking weed” was an activity they do in their free time.

Other focus group participants and surveys used in the assessment noted that lack of activities geared toward youth and ineffective parenting were contributing factors to drug and alcohol use among underage users.
The vast majority of students surveyed said their parents would disapprove of them using marijuana. About 89 percent of high-school seniors in the district said their parents would consider it “very wrong” to use marijuana, while just 66 percent said the same about smoking cigarettes and 53 percent for drinking alcohol.