In a letter to the Wisconsin State Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance, anti-tobacco groups pleaded for reasonable budget cuts to the state’s tobacco prevention and control efforts’ funding, which will likely take up tobacco funding in its meeting Wednesday.

The Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board and the Tobacco-Free Dane County Coalition, among others, sent open letters to legislators asking for reprieve from cavernous cuts.

“In 2001, over 7,300 people died in Wisconsin from tobacco-related diseases, costing businesses and taxpayers almost $1.6 billion in health-care costs,” said Tobacco Control Board executive director David Gunderson said Tuesday in a release. “Many of these human and health-care costs are almost completely preventable.”

Gunderson said that since Wisconsin began its comprehensive tobacco prevention efforts in 2001, high-school smoking has decreased 18 percent and overall consumption had decreased 5 percent, compared to only a 1 percent decrease nationally.

Doyle, along with members of the Tobacco Control Board, announced in April a four-month-long television advertising campaign focused on highlighting the economic costs of smoking to the state. The state had already allocated $15 million dollars in Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget for tobacco prevention and control.

“This is miniscule in comparison with the $3 billion per year the entire state spends on medical expenses and lost productivity due to tobacco-related diseases. Last year, Wisconsin state government spent $422 million in direct medical payments related to tobacco use,” said Tobacco-Free Dane County Coalition chairwoman Patricia Gadow in her letter to legislators.

Joint Finance Committee member Rep. Dan Schoof, D-Beloit, said that he had not introduced the amendment to the budget legislation.

“There has been speculation that there was going to be major cuts, and there was even some talk of eliminating the funding for anti-tobacco work altogether,” Schoof said. “I think there’s an understanding that there will be something proposed concerning anti-tobacco funding; hopefully that won’t mean drastic cuts.”

Schoof said that it would be particularly disappointing for cuts to be made to the funding when some of the money was already starting to be used to combat the spread of smoking.

“I understand it’s tempting for people to want to try and take some of this money, especially with the budget being what it is,” Schoof said. “But if there are drastic cuts, I will vote against them.”

Gunderson also made the case in the Tobacco Control Board’s letter to the Committee that the good of the anti-tobacco programs outweighed the need to scrap for additional budget cash.

“Unless the State of Wisconsin makes a good faith effort to reduce the death, disease and health-care costs caused by tobacco, the Legislature will be guilty of profiting from the death of Wisconsin citizens. That seems unconscionable.”

Tobacco-Free Dane County proposed increasing the sales tax on cigarette packs by 85 cents in addition to maintaining the $15 million in funding. The groups argue that such an increase would create $306 million in new revenue, which would provide a stable funding source for future anti-tobacco advertisements and programs.