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.