Navy and DoD propose ending sales of tobacco products at commissaries: We should all support this effort

On March 24, 2014 Navy Times reported that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus was pushing to have Navy and Marine Corps commissaries and exchanges stop selling tobacco products. When asked about this proposal, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel supported it, saying that more tobacco control measures should be considered, including the establishment of smoke-free military installations.
 
Research by Libby Smith, Ruth Malone, and their colleagues here at UCSF into the history of military efforts to establish strong tobacco control policies shows that we should expect the next step to be Congress blocking any attempt to restrict the tobacco industry’s pursuit of the military market, deploying language about the “freedom” to smoke, the “rights” of military personnel to use tobacco, and the necessity of tobacco for “stress relief:”

• Death at a discount: how the tobacco industry thwarted tobacco control policies in US military commissaries (2007)
• Advance and retreat: tobacco control policy in the U.S. military (2008)
• Forcing the Navy to sell cigarettes on ships: how the tobacco industry and politicians torpedoed Navy tobacco control (2011)
• Mediatory Myths in the U.S. Military: Tobacco Use as "Stress Relief" (2013)

Given this history, it is not at all surprising that pro-tobacco Congressional forces have weighed in with their opposition using all the industry's time-tested arguments. (So has the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps.) 
 
These arguments fail to take into account that tobacco use is not a “freedom,” but a long term, deadly addiction, and that no court has ever established a “right” to use tobacco. As for the problem of stress relief, there is no question that military personnel can experience high levels of stress and need effective coping mechanisms. However, surely we can do better that using taxpayer subsidies to sell them an addictive drug that will kill half of them.
 
Secretary Hagel pointed out that tobacco use by military personnel costs the military hundreds of millions of dollars every year – and that no price could be put on the health of those under his command.  
 
Fortunately, some Democrats and the major health groups (ACS CAN, ALA, AHA, TFK, Legacy, and the Partnership for Prevention) have written the Secretary of the Navy supporting this policy.
 
All tobacco control and public health advocates should take this opportunity to voice their approval of Hagel’s proposals, and the government should quit sacrificing the health of another generation of service members for tobacco industry profits.
 
You can write the Secretary at:
 
The Honorable Ray Mabus
Secretary of the Navy
2000 Navy Pentagon
Washington, DC 20350-2000