The Institute of Medicine suggests beginning at the service academies, with the eventual goal of a smoke-free military.
Tobacco use reduces soldiers’ physical fitness and endurance and is linked to higher rates of absenteeism and lost productivity, the report said.
In 2005, 32 percent of active-duty personnel and 22 percent of veterans were smokers. Rates among active-duty personnel have recently increased — possibly because of growing tobacco use by deployed troops — the report said.
“We found that the adverse effects of tobacco use on military readiness, the health of both smokers and non-smokers and the financial cost of the medical care of smoking-related illness in military and veteran populations are a sound basis for moving systematically toward a tobacco-free military,” Stuart Bondurant, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and chairman of the committee that wrote the report, said in a statement.
