SDCL 10-50B-1 Legislative Findings

• Library: South Dakota Statutes
• Edition: 2023
• Currency: Current through the 2023 Legislative Session
• Year: 2023
• Citation: SDCL 10-50B-1

The Legislature finds the following:

(1) Cigarette smoking presents serious public health concerns to the State of South Dakota and to the citizens of the state. The surgeon general of the United States has determined that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, and other serious diseases, and that there are hundreds of thousands of tobacco-related deaths in the United States each year. These diseases most often do not appear until many years after the person in question begins smoking;

(2) Cigarette smoking also presents serious financial concerns for the state. Under certain health care programs, the state may have a legal obligation to provide medical assistance to eligible persons for health conditions associated with cigarette smoking, and those persons may have a legal entitlement to receive such medical assistance;