Overview
Executive Summary (continued)
- Funding for Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Programs Increases but Important Program Decimated
After a number of years of declines, it appears that funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs is on the rise in a number of states in FY2007 (July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007 for most states). In New York, funding increased from $45.5 million in FY2006 to over $87.5 million in FY2007. Funding also increased in a number of other states, including Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico and Vermont.
However, an adverse court decision in Mississippi has decimated one of the most successful tobacco prevention programs in the country. Gov. Haley Barbour and other state agencies filed a lawsuit seeking to redirect the $20 million each year in tobacco settlement money that had been going to The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi for state tobacco prevention programs to the Health Care Trust Fund where the rest of the settlement money currently goes. In May 2006, a judge ruled in favor of the governor. As a result, The Partnership has no new funding for programs in FY2007.
This court ruling is a big loss as Mississippi had been one of the few states to consistently fund its tobacco control program above the minimum level recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The program had also shown impressive results reducing smoking by 48 percent among public middle school students (from 23% in 1999 to 12% in 2004) and by 32 percent among public high school students (32.5% in 1999 to 22.1% in 2004).11
Studies indicate that thousands of illnesses and deaths from tobacco use could be prevented and billions of dollars in medical expenses could be saved if all states made long-term investments in a sustained campaign to prevent tobacco-related disease and death. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health concluded that if states spend just the minimum amount recommended by the CDC, youth smoking nationally would be 3 percent to 14 percent lower.12
- More States Pass Fire-Safe Cigarette Laws
States have also started to pass laws providing residents with protection from cigarette-caused fires. Three states—Illinois, Massachusetts and New Hampshire—adopted these important consumer-protection laws in 2006. They joined California, New York and Vermont, which passed similar legislation in previous years. Canada also implemented a nationwide fire-safe cigarette standard in October 2005.
Cigarette-ignited fires are the nation's leading cause of home fire deaths, killing between 700 and 900 people each year, according to the National Fire Protection Association. A 2005 study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that self-extinguishing cigarettes sold in New York, while not perfect, were much more likely to go out than keep burning and had no impact on cigarette sales in New York.13
- More Hotels and Corporations Go Smokefree
2006 brought an increase in the number of hotels and other corporations that made their campuses smokefree. In January, the Westin Hotel and Resorts became the first major hotel brand to go smokefree throughout all of its 77 hotels in the United States and Canada. In July, Marriott announced its hotels—including Marriott, J.W. Marriott, Renaissance Hotel, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn and Suites, Courtyard by Marriott and Spring Hill Suites—would go smokefree as well. Marriott's new policy will cover almost 400,000 hotel rooms.
Other companies, including aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and Scotts Miracle-Gro, announced new corporate smokefree policies that apply to all corporate properties, including parking lots and outside venues.i
Companies such as Lockheed Martin often cite spiraling health care costs and lost productivity as the main reasons for adopting smokefree policies.14
Overview continued... |
