To the editor:

Fifty years after its release, the Surgeon General’s Report’s legacy is more powerful than even.

Any episode of the show “Mad Men” will give you a sense for how normal smoking used to be in America. Back then, smoking was common just about anywhere you can imagine.

Since then, the national smoking rate has dropped to around 20 percent, and smoking isn’t allowed in most public places. The release of the first Surgeon General’s Report on Jan. 11, 1964, laid the groundwork for these important public health changes.

That landmark report forever changed the public view of cigarettes and tobacco products. Once thought of as a harmless vice, the report clearly illustrated for the first time the serious health harms of cigarette smoking.

The report’s impact continues to be felt to this day. Many important, life-saving policies such as Kansas’ smoke-free legislation might not have occurred without the first Surgeon General’s Report.

We need to continue to show the same kind of courage that it took to release that first report.  Let’s encourage Kansas lawmakers to invest in the three, proven strategies that help people quit smoking: increase the costs of cigarettes, enforce clean air laws and direct cessation efforts to help the more than 70 percent of smokers today who want to quit.