Tobacco use costs Wyoming hundreds of millions of dollars each year in lost productivity and health care, according to a report released by the state on Thursday.

The University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Department of Health said Wyoming lost $155 million in productivity and $136 million in health care costs because of tobacco use in 2004.

Tobacco is the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the world, Dr. Brent Sherard said during a press conference on the report.

Sherard, director of the Wyoming Department of Health, said smoke-free policies and increases in taxation on cigarettes should be the priority to increase the health of Wyoming residents.

The report concluded the same.

"Twenty to 30 years from now, I think we are going to look back and ask, 'Why didn't we implement this a lot sooner?'" Sherard said about a smoke-free policy. "Second-hand smoke - how could we have tolerated this back in the old days of 2008?"

The health department asked the university to compile the report to objectively inform the department, the Legislature and community policy-makers on the science of second-hand smoke.

Sherard said the health department couldn't lobby for a smoking ban in public places or higher taxes, but it could provide information to the Legislature.

He said a statewide smoking ban in public places will be discussed at a meeting of the Joint Labor, Health and Human Services Interim Committee later this month. He said he knows several legislators who are interested in seeing a bill in the 2009 session.

Rodger McDaniel, director of the mental health and substance abuse division of the health department, found comparing states with smoke-free policies to those without them as some of the most surprising information in the report.

Eight of the 10 states with the highest rates of smoking do not have any smoke-free policies, he said.

Each of the 10 states with the lowest rates of smoking have smoking bans in restaurants and bars and considerably higher taxes on cigarettes.

To counter people's argument that smoking is a personal choice and right, Sherard said some people don't have the choice of where they work based on their education and financial need. He said it's not fair they are exposed to the second-hand smoke because they need to provide for their family.

"People can choose to smoke, but their choice can harm others," McDaniel said.

The report didn't find any valid studies that suggested a smoke-free policy had a negative impact on businesses, McDaniel pointed out.

"We need a pretty deliberate attack on tobacco use," McDaniel said. "The debate gets hot and heavy, but unfortunately not a lot of the debate is based on science."

Contact health reporter Allison Rupp at (307) 266-0534 or allison.rupp@trib.com.

Highlights from the report:

* 60 percent of nonsmokers in the country show some sort of biological evidence of exposure to second-hand smoke.

* 22 percent of adults in Wyoming are current smokers.

* Smokers working in communities with strong smoke-free ordinances are 38 percent more likely to quit smoking than those in communities without any.

* Teens in towns with smoke-free ordinances in restaurants are 40 percent less likely to become smokers than their peers in towns with no or partial smoking bans.

- For every 10 percent increase in the real price of cigarettes, overall cigarette consumption decreases by 3.5 to 5 percent.

- Every smoker who quit in Wyoming could save the state approximately $1,528 in health care costs every year.