Madison County has one of the highest smoker rates in state and nation

Jack Kress, 52, took a long drag on his cigarette letting the smoke fill his lungs and curl around his face.
“They are just nasty,” Kress said. “I only smoke half a pack a day — I’m down to nothing.”
On Saturday, Kress, who lives in Anderson, was standing outside the Village Pantry, 112 E. 14th St., smoking his cigarettes — exactly 50 years after the U.S. Surgeon General said smoking causes illness and death.
Today, warnings are printed in large letters on advertisements and on every cigarette pack with the Surgeon General’s warning.
Warnings that could be written in a foreign language, as far as Kress is concerned.
“I can’t read or write,” Kress said looking down at the glowing end of his cigarette.
Kress said he wants to stop smoking, but said it has been difficult.
“I really think I could quit, but it helps with my nerves,” he said. “I hate smoking them. They take all your air — they are just bad.”
According to an annual report the state files with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 26 percent of the adult population are smokers. Nationwide, smoking among adults is between 9.3 percent and 26.5 percent. Indiana is ranked 50th among the states for its high population of smokers.
More than 30 percent of the adults in Madison County are smokers.
In the last month, 10 percent of the nation’s youth aged 12-17 smoked a cigarette. More than 11 percent of the youth in Indiana smoked a cigarette.
“What research shows is unlike alcohol and other drugs, tobacco actually trends with lower economic status,” Karesa Knight-Wilkerson, executive director and tobacco control coordinator for Intersect, 630 Nichol Ave. “People who lack a high school diploma or live in poverty have higher tobacco use rates.”
Knight-Wilkerson said survey information collected in Madison County shows monthly use of cigarettes in students is higher than both the state and national averages.
Nationally, only 4.9 percent students in the eighth grade use cigarettes. Across the state, 7 percent of eighth-grade students reported using cigarettes, and in Madison County, more than 9 percent admitted to smoking cigarettes.
More than 17 percent of students nationwide in the 12th grade report using cigarettes, 19.5 percent reported using cigarettes in the state, and 26.1 percent reported using cigarettes in Madison County.
Kress said he smoked his first cigarette when he was 12. Since then he has stopped smoking occasionally, but has not been able to break the habit. Cheap cigarettes.
According to the CDC, about 8 percent of smokers benefit from free tobacco cessation lines. Less than 1 percent called the quitline in Indiana. Madison County hospitals also offer tobacco cessation programs for free.
“We know it takes a tobacco user an average of seven to nine times to quit and stay quit for more than one year,” Knight-Wilkerson said. “The important thing is that they are recognizing the need to quit and are making that effort.”
Knight-Wilkerson said there are several tobacco cessation methods available to Madison County residents.
More than 443,000 people die each year from smoking or from exposure to secondhand smoke and more than 8.6 million people have a serious illness caused by smoking, according to the CDC.
When the Surgeon General’s warning was issued 50 years ago, almost half of the nation’s population smoked and no one thought twice about selling cigarettes to children.
“We grew up in a different time in the ’70s,” Kress said. “They used to sell cigarettes to me when I was a kid.”
James Davidson, 56, Anderson, said he has smoked for more than 30 years.
“I just had some tests and my lungs are a little foggy,” he said. “I wish I would have never touched them — period.”
But he is still smoking.