Caley Meals

Features Editor

This past Wednesday the anti-smoking group Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids alleged that the states benefiting from the monumental 1998 tobacco settlement are spending little on programs to curb smoking and are in fact using only a fraction of the funding that health officials recommend for anti-tobacco efforts.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 23.6 percent of adults in Wisconsin smoke and 15,900 kids under the age of 18 become new daily smokers each year in this state alone. Five years ago, 46 U.S. states cashed in on a landmark $246 billion settlement with tobacco companies for health-care problems and deaths caused by smoking. The money was supposed to be used to increase anti-smoking efforts nationwide.

“When the states sued the tobacco industry and then again when they settled their cases against the tobacco industry, they said they were doing so because of what they described as a tragic epidemic of tobacco use among children and the crushing and rising burden of tobacco-related disease on state Medicaid expenditures,” said Matthew Myers, president of the campaign. “Yet as of October 2003, 24 states have cut their funding for tobacco prevention and cessation, including several of the programs that have proven most successful at reducing youth tobacco use, such as the programs in California, Massachusetts and Florida.”

States have cut spending on anti-smoking programs by more than 25 percent during the last two years, the group said. In the 2004 fiscal year, the report says, states plan to spend a total of $541.1 million on anti-tobacco programs, down from $749.7 million in 2002.

Bonnie Sumner, a private consultant for a variety of anti-smoking groups in the state of Wisconsin, is outraged at the inadequacy of the state’s anti-tobacco programs.

“When I look around the country and see what other people are doing in comparison to Wisconsin, it really is just criminal,” Sumner said. “I mean, we have one of the worst lung-cancer rates in the [United States]. This isn’t a small issue. People are dying.”

According to the CDC, 7,800 adults die each year in the state of Wisconsin from their own smoking. Along with that, approximately 720 to 1,280 adults, children and babies die each year from secondhand smoke.

In a hearing before the U.S. Senate Commerce committee Nov. 12, West Virginia Attorney General Darrell V. McGraw said, “The reason we got into this fight was to protect public health and prevent underage smoking. A significant portion of this money should go toward these causes.”

Similarly, New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman said, “Every penny of these funds should be used for health purposes, including prevention programs and counter-advertising to protect kids, cessation programs and community partnerships to serve those who have already put their health at risk by smoking.”

The campaign currently rates Wisconsin 24th in the nation for state funding of tobacco-prevention programs, with Maine, Delaware and Mississippi leading the country, respectively.

“It’s all about the tobacco companies not wanting to give up one penny of their money,” Sumner said. “Who are these people anyways? How do they sleep at night knowing they produce a product that kills people?”

According to the campaign’s report, 33 of the states are spending less than half the minimum amount recommended by the CDC. The minimum spending recommended by the CDC usually amounts to 20 to 25 percent of a state’s annual settlement proceeds and only four states — Maine, Delaware, Mississippi and Arkansas — are still funding anti-tobacco campaigns to the level advised by the CDC, said the group.

In comparison, cigarette-makers pumped up their marketing budgets by 66 percent in the three years following the settlement to a record $11.45 billion a year.

The state of Wisconsin spent 15.5 million dollars on tobacco prevention in 2003, only 49.74 percent of the money allocated by the 1998 settlement, and further decreased this amount to 10 million dollars, or 32 percent of the money available, for 2004, according to the campaign.