Heart Association calls on Ohio lawmakers for tobacco tax, CPR in schools
The American Heart Association gathered more than two dozen advocates from Ohio to come to the statehouse on March 18 and call upon lawmakers to pass policies ranging from tobacco tax adjustments and CPR training in schools.
"We are reaching out to our lawmakers to pass legislation that advances health and hope for everyone, everywhere," said Dr. Lawrence Prochaska, member of the American Heart Association's Ohio State Advocacy Committee. "This is about saving lives, and it starts with public policy."
The organization is pushing for two pieces of legislation to pass through in an attempt to help limit deaths linked to cardiac arrest and to lower Ohio's smoking rate.
The first piece of legislature is the Tobacco Tax adjustment, which seeks to tax packs of cigarettes at $1.50 per pack, impose a 42% tax on all other tobacco products and maintain the proposed $10 million appropriation for the Tobacco Use Prevention Fund.
According to the media release, more than 22,000 Ohio youth under 18 smoke their first cigarette.
The other piece of legislation, Funding for CPR Training in Schools will look to appropriate $606k a year to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to make sure they get the resources to train kids how to give CPR.
More than 350k people experience cardiac arrest outside of the hospital in the U.S. resulting in a 90% fatality rate with 23,000 of those being children, according to the release.
