We're #40 in smoking prevention

The Idaho Statesman today published a report uncovering for the general public the disturbing fact that in Idaho we don't care if our children smoke or not. "Let 'em make up their own minds" seems to be the statewide mantra. "It's not up to us to help our kids live healthy lives. It's their burden."

Of course, the Statesman didn't say that. They reported the following—

• Tobacco companies spend over $57 million a year in Idaho selling cigarettes
  
• Money spent by tobacco companies marketing tobacco is 41 times as much as we spend on on tobacco prevention.
• Idaho will collect $81.9 million this year as our share of the tobacco settlement
  
• Less than 2 percent of money from the tobacco settlement will be spent on tobacco prevention
• Idaho spends only 12 percent of minimum recommendations on tobacco prevention

Do tobacco prevention programs work?

Ask Maine. The state has reduced smoking among high school students by 59 percent and among middle school students by 64 percent. They are the leader of the 50 states in funding tobacco prevention programs.

In Idaho 15.8 percent of high school students smoke, the Statesman article reports. Every year 1,700 more youngsters become regular smokers, and every year 1,500 lives are lost in Idaho due to smoking-related health problems at a cost to the state of $319 million in healthcare costs alone.

The only good thing I can say about this is that at least we're honest. We don't hold back the fact that we'd rather have tobacco companies spending $57 million a year in our state promoting cigarette smoking than working to save lives. Cutting smoking rates by one third could save the lives of at least 500 Idaho residents and associated costs of at least $100 million.

It doesn't make sense financially. It doesn't make sense from a health perspective. It doesn't make sense from the perspective of employers and businesses in Idaho.

But it does make sense to one active segment of society that will not give in, slow down, or shut up: The tobacco industry. We'd rather support the tobacco industry than our own kids. For shame.

A Watchdog for the Settlement Fund

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids issues timely reports on the progress of the Tobacco Settlement fund and how the money is being used. I am enormously relieved that this is the case and will be following this organization closely and benefiting from its reports.

As of the end of last year the Campaign issued the following statement:

...[W]while the states have modestly increased total funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs, the vast majority of states are still failing to keep the promise of the tobacco settlement and falling far short of funding such programs at even minimum levels recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Specifically, here's where we're stacked...

Idaho...The state received $73.2 million total from the tobacco industry in fiscal year 2007, including taxes on tobacco sales as well as settlement funds. The Centers for Disease Control recommended that we spend at least $11.04 million last year on tobacco prevention. We managed to scrape up a budget for $908,000 last year, which was a significant improvement over the previous year when tobacco prevention funds were cut by the legislature to just $544,000 from the previous year's (2005) total of $1.9 million.

Make no mistake about it. We are spending pennies instead of dollars in helping to keep our kids from death by tobacco. We're not alone. As a matter of fact, only three of the fifty states are spending the minimum amount recommended by the CDC: Maine, Delaware, Colorado.

At the other extreme, five states--Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and Tennessee--manage to squeeze $0.00 from the fund that was set up to help prevent the use of tobacco by youngsters and adolescent.

Idaho floats along at #39 out of 50 states in terms of compliance. Not to worry. The spending rules were set up for loose translation and implementation.

How We Spend Earmarked Money

Here's how some of our states are spending the money earmarked to help educate youngsters about the perils of smoking and make decisions not to smoke. The 1998 legal settlement allocated millions of dollars to the states for this purpose, but few strings were attached, and enforcement wasn't even breathed. So here's what's happening...

Humboldt County, California, received $1.3 million and spent $0 on smoking prevention but gave the money to a project to improve health care in jails.

Pisgah High School, North Carolina, received a $250,000 grant from the tobacco settlement to buy computer-operated lathes and mills.

The State of Ohio has its top officials glowing after receiving a $5 billion payment for selling tobacco bonds.

In Washington DC council members voted to spend $116 million in tobacco settlement funds on a project to sell and rehabilitate a collapsing hospital in the city.

Connecticut decided to spend $1.7 million in tobacco settlement cash on various medical research projects, none of them related to tobacco.

Pennsylvania gives details for spending the $424.4 million it will receive from the Tobacco Settlement Fund in 2007-08 and reports that 12 percent will be spent on tobacco use prevention and cessation. The rest, as allowed by the fund, goes to various health-related programs including health investment research (30%) and health research (19%).

That's only the tip of the iceberg.

The lure of second-hand smoke

Scientists are telling us that simply smelling cigarette smoke opens more nicotine receptors in the brain. The affected receptors are the "pleasure receptors" that deliver a sense of pleasure and reward.

If you smoke you probably have at least a million more of these nicotine receptors than an average non-smoker. If you don't smoke but breathe smoke from other people in the same room, your brain automatically pops in a few nicotine receptors. These few receptors help you become drawn toward the idea, and then the practice, and finally the addiction, of nicotine in your body.

Find out what scientists at the California Institute of Technology have learned about second-hand smoke.

A well-organized source of information about the devastation of second-hand smoke is the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). This is an inside link.

Tobacco money is everywhere

How can you vote for a measure that might cut into tobacco revenues when the companies that manufacture and sell tobacco products are paying your election campaign costs?

That is the apparent reality for Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who has accepted nearly half a million dollars ($482,000) from tobacco interests to help him win election. Since the 2000 elections the tobacco industry has handed over nearly $25 million to help fund federal elections. Nearly 80 percent went to Republicans, including President George W. Bush, who took more than $250,000 from tobacco interest for his two elections.

Obviously, it's more than coincidence that Sen. McConnell leads the drive to bury the SCHIP program that would use additional tobacco taxes to provide insurance coverage for children from poor families.

As much as I oppose this sort of persuasion, the track being taken sounds too easy. The vote was solid in favor of SCHIP. It was the veto by the President that stopped the measure from being enacted. He cited financial reasons and worried that the measure would motivate too many families to switch from private to government insurance.

Sources cited include The Center for Responsive Politics (re campaign funding by tobacco interests).

SCHIP veto and cigarettes

The SCHIP proposal to extend health care insurance to American children in need was defeated by Presidential veto, but it isn't over yet.

Rep. Joe Knollenberg says it's just too expensive, that the special program should be limited to families earning $40,000 or less for a family of four.

Meanwhile other members of Congress are busy rounding up votes to override the veto.

The bottom line for the proposal is shaky. A federal tax of 61 cents for every pack of cigarettes is designed to pay for the extended health insurance. "It's not enough," say supporters of the veto. "We'd need 22 million new smokers."

Save the children. Smoke more.

Let's fool the public

Watch out for letters from people you don't know.

It wasn't very clever, but apparently a tobacco lobbyist thought he could get by with writing a letter over the signature of a teacher to oppose Measure 50 in Oregon. The proposed legislation would increase cigarette taxes to pay for tobacco education programs and help fund children's health care.

The letter was supposedly from a first-grade teacher in Salem, but the return address turned out to be the office of Mark Nelson, a lobbyist for R. J. Reynolds Tobacco.

Read the whole story on KATU TV's web page.

How Idaho's tobacco settlement money is being managed

A total of $790 million is expected to be allocated to Idaho for the first 25 years of the tobacco settlement beginning in 1994. That comes to $3.16 million per year.

Highlights:

2000. The state legislature created a "Millennium Fund" to "receive, invest and disburse funds received" by Idaho under the settlement. Each fiscal year five percent of the fund's current market value is subject to appropriation by the legislature.

2002. An oversight committee was set up with five senators and five representatives to review grant applications and issue recommendations to the legislature.

2006. The state constitution was amended to set up a permanent Millennium Endowment Fund, with 80 percent of the tobacco money going to the newly created fund and 20 percent to the existing fund.

Acknowledging that the federal law resulting from the tobacco settlement does not specify how the funds will be used, the Millennium Endowment Fund committee "has chosen to only consider applications for programs and projects directly related to one or more of the following: (1) tobacco cessation or prevention; (2) substance abuse cessation or prevention; or (3) tobacco or substance abuse related disease treatment. In addition, the committee has determined that funds may not be used for permanent capital improvements or organizational start-up costs."

The budget report lists projects that are hoping to receive tobacco settlement funds from the legislature in 2008, including the following:

• $94,000: Idaho State Police for youth tobacco investigations
• $270,000 (per year): Idaho Supreme Court for community-based juvenile prevention and intervention programs
• $500,000: Public Health Districts on tobacco cessation programs and information for adolescents and the general public
• $500,000: Department of Health and Welfare for an anti-tobacco media campaign
  
• $22,500: All Things New, a faith-based organization dealing with substance abuse
  
• $82,100: American Lung Association for Teens Against Tobacco Use (T.A.T.U.)
• $49,100: Benewah Medical Center, to expand "How's Your Heart" program to include more tobacco education
  
• $73,700: Boys and Girls Clubs of Idaho for Positive Action, a tobacco-prevention program
• $154,000: Community Council of Idaho (formerly Idaho Migrant Council), to help prevent substance abuse in southern Idaho
• $164,000: Family Care Center, to include tobacco cessation in its health programs
• $147,100: Idaho Drug Free Youth, Inc. to develop ParenTeen PowerLines,
  a parent and teen prevention education program
  
• $71,000: Miracle Valley Ministry Center, to expand current services to include tobacco prevention

Only the first four of these projects has received a recommendation by the Governor as of this summer.

Where has all the money gone?

Why stop kids from smoking when we can spend the money from the country's tobacco settlement somewhere else? Or save it for a rainy day?

The American Lung Association says that the Idaho legislature has "raided" the Millennium fund by zeroing out the balance in 2003 to take care of a budget deficit. Now, the association reports, the fund is slowly rebuilding.

In fiscal year 2007 the fund allocated $1.275 million from the fund, including $78,000 for the lung association's Teens Against Tobacco Use program.

Here's the report by The American Lung Association.

The reality is that less than 5 percent of the money in Idaho's fund has been used for anything even remotely resembling a tobacco education program.

A friend of tobacco falters

Getting himself arrested for lewd activities in a restroom wasn't very smart. Senator Larry Craig should be so embarrassed that he will do the manly thing and withdraw from public service. Opposing tobacco reforms was equally irresponsible. How about a 25% rating from the ACLU for his anti civil rights voting record? Or his 91% rating from the US Chamber of Commerce for being pro-business?

What is "The Millennium Fund?"

According to information on the website posted by the Idaho State Treasurer's Office to explain the Millennium fund, here's what it is:

1. It is an endowment fund.
2. It has authority to receive, invest, and disburse funds.
   
3. The source of the money is the "master settlement agreement."
   
4. The "master settlement agreement" resulted from a successful class-action lawsuit by states against tobacco companies for marketing cigarettes directly to underage persons.
5. Each year the states receive money from this settlement.
6. The money is earmarked to help underage Idaho residents choose not to use tobacco, and to help educate about the dangers of tobacco.

If you saw the statement with these points, would you assume that the money is supposed to be spent for the purpose detailed in #6, above? Or would you assume that the money is freely available for legislators to appropriate as they see fit with or without any connection to the use of tobacco?

I need to hear from you. Check out the pages. Get the facts. Share. Post your comment.

jg

The tobacco settlement of all time

Remember 1988?

That was the year when 46 states plus the District of Columbia were told they would be receiving a total of about $250 billion over the next 25 years. The money comes from the settlement the courts determined should be paid by tobacco companies to sponsor tobacco education and reduce the rate of smoking.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) made recommendations for the amount of money that should be allocated to each state to spend on tobacco education programs.

The latest statistical report shows that Idaho is near the bottom of the list when it comes to spending the settlement money on promoting non-smoking. Only 12 states were lower, but Idaho did report spending 8.2 percent of the state's allotment in the fiscal year ending in 2007. That's better than five states (Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Tennessee) who spent nothing at all of the money that was given to the states to encourage a smoke-free lifestyle for children and adolescents.

Ironically, Mississippi was heralded as the star of the program for the first years of its existence. The poverty-ridden state actually met the CDC's recommended spending allotment--until last year. That's when Governor Haley Barbour began lobbying furiously to sidestep the program. His former job as a tobacco lobbyist obviously had something to do with his pro-tobacco campaign.

Is your sense of justice stirred by this? What can you do? What should all of us do?

Tobacco Boondoggle in Idaho

How about this? The government hands Idaho millions of dollars from tobacco companies with very few restrictions. It's supposed to help our kids choose not to smoke. Less than 4% of the money allocated to Idaho actually got spent in some small way to help educate children and adolescents about how tobacco and nicotine can wreck their lives.

Marijuana, now that's something we can afford to eliminate. Earlier this month the state sent 22 law enforcement officers to Boise County, a tree-covered scenic bit of mountains to a place where they'd heard there was a marijuana crop about to go to market. They were sure that the 2,600 plants they captured from three surprised Hispanic men had a street value of about $6.6 million. Maybe. A friend of mine in California said the top value of any marijuana bust is about 10 percent of the value reported to the news media. If that's the case, maybe it was $600,000 or so.

I'm not advocating marijuana! I've never touched the stuff and plan to live the rest of my life without doing so. I've never smoked a cigarette, either.

But that doesn't keep me from being furious with our short-sighted legislators who didn't think tobacco was a big enough problem to worry about. "If it's bad for them, they can quit" is a common comment.

Keep up with me on this. I'll tell you where the money went. I'll tell you what our leading business executives think about the anti-smoking campaign. I'll share with you the glee that the tobacco companies feel when states like Idaho throw money out the window instead of helping kids learn why cigarettes are bad for them.

Jump in. We need you.

jg