Editorial: Anti-smoking efforts were robbed blind–Dayton Daily News

November 27, 2009  

Editorial: Anti-smoking efforts were robbed blind

By the Dayton Daily News | Friday, November 27, 2009, 12:00 AM

In the past decade, Ohio has fumbled away a historic opportunity to attack the ills of smoking and get young people not to take up tobacco products.

The really sad part is that there was no excuse. The state had the money, thanks to a legal settlement between major tobacco companies and several states, which brought Ohio $10 billion.

But lawmakers mostly chose to spend it on other things or — most egregiously — to steal back money it had set aside to fight smoking and redirect even that cash to other priorities.

Now the consequences are clear.

Today’s financial crisis, and accompanying drop in state revenue, has public health advocates warning that there probably won’t be money in the future for state-backed anti-tobacco programs, or even enforcement of Ohio’s popular three-year-old ban on smoking in indoor public places.

There is still a way to renew the war on smoking through carefully targeted taxes on existing tobacco products, like cigarettes and chew, and on new candy-like tobacco mints sinfully designed to hook a new generation of kids.

How badly is Ohio falling short? The state is spending $7.3 million this fiscal year on anti-smoking efforts and has plans to cut that amount to $2.8 million next year.

The national advocacy group Tobacco Free Kids recommends a state this size should spend $145 million a year. That means Ohio is spending less than 5 percent of that target.

Not coincidentally, Ohio recently ranked worst in the nation at curbing tobacco sales to kids.

It’s incredible the state could be handed $10 billion from the legal settlement as compensation for the health care ravages tobacco has caused its residents and be spending so little to fight the problem just a decade later.

Not that the state should have spent all the settlement money to combat smoking. But it failed to keep even the modest promises it made in this regard.

The majority of the settlement money was spent on building schools, an undeniably important need for Ohio in 1998. By some measures, Ohio ranked worst in the nation then for the quality of its school facilities. School construction is paying great dividends for schoolchildren.

But at the time, lawmakers pledged to spend a healthy $300 million a year on smoking prevention for kids. Later, state leaders proposed to set aside money in a special fund until it reached $1.2 billion, with the idea that the interest from the fund could be spent on prevention programs.

That, too, has now been junked as lawmakers raided the $230 million fund this summer during the budget crisis.

What Ohio didn’t do then — raise taxes on tobacco products — is the right move now. The higher taxes would discourage some tobacco users, or potential users, from spending their money on these harmful products.

At the same time, a big chunk of the money raised from a new tax could be directed back into prevention programs.

At $1.25 a pack, Ohio’s cigarette tax is below neighboring states. Raising the tax 75 cents — making Ohio even with Michigan — would bring in an estimated half-billion dollars in new tax revenue each year.

Even if just half of that money were spent annually on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, it would make a big difference.

The rest of the money could help the state with its ongoing budget woes.

Even more money could be raised if the tax were extended to new tobacco mints that allegedly are aimed at adults, but that are more than likely to appeal to kids.

A new tax can get Ohio back on the right path after a decade of squandered opportunity.


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