(Editorial - Graphic Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Initiatives such as the Mountaineer Mile walking program or efforts against certain food dyes and sugary sodas may have West Virginians thinking more about their health habits these days, but a report last month from the West Virginia Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation Task Force suggests we’ve got a long way to go to tackle our unusually high tobacco product usage rates.

Tobacco and nicotine product use here is among the highest in the country, with more West Virginians (10.1%) reporting use in 2023 than in 2022 (9.3%).

“While the use of traditional tobacco products in the United States has declined in the past five decades, tobacco use levels in West Virginia continue to rank among the highest in the nation,” according to the report. “Conversely, use of electronic vaping devices (e-cigarettes) has been rising.”

Vaping rates are increasing among West Virginia’s young people. The numbers are difficult to believe: 6.2% of high schoolers report using smokeless tobacco products, 9.8% report smoking cigarettes or cigars, and an astounding 27% report using vape products regularly while 48.8% say they’ve tried vaping at least once.

And bear in mind, these are just the students willing to admit to their habits.

Meanwhile, West Virginians suffer the second-highest rate of tobacco-associated cancers in the country — 228.2 cancers per 100,000 people.

That’s an enormous physical and financial cost to pay. But according to a different report — the American Lung Association’s State of Tobacco Control — West Virginia gets an F for tobacco cessation and preventing funding, an F for tobacco taxes, a D for smokefree air regulations, a D for access to cessation services and an F for restrictions on flavored tobacco products.

Nearly six years ago, state lawmakers created the task force, which was supposed to recommend and monitor the establishment and management of programs that are found to be effective in the reduction of tobacco use.

It reported to the Division of Tobacco Prevention, which, because of a lack of funding, has been dissolved. Lawmakers also cut state funding for tobacco cessation and prevention efforts in the fiscal year 2026 budget.

If we’re willing to try to ban food dyes or limit access to sugary drinks, why are our elected officials so hesitant to fund tobacco use cessation and prevention efforts? Maybe the governor and lawmakers don’t have the money to fund all the items on the task force’s list of recommendations, but given that it is a list they requested, it seems as though we should at least be moving forward on them rather than backward.