Tobacco Report Illustrates the Need for Additional Tobacco Prevention Initiatives in Ohio |
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A new report entitled "A Decade of Broken Promises: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement Ten Years Later," was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The 10th anniversary of the settlement comes as recent surveys have shown that the nation has made significant progress in reducing smoking in the past decade, but smoking declines have slowed in recent years. From 1997 to 2007, smoking rates declined by 45 percent among high school students and by 20 percent among adults. But 20 percent of high school students and 19.8 percent of adults still smoke, and tobacco use remains the nation’s leading cause of preventable death, killing more than 400,000 people and costing nearly $100 billion in health care expenditures each year. Key findings of the report include: This year, no state is funding tobacco prevention programs at the levels recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only nine states are funding tobacco prevention at even half the CDC-recommended amount, and 27 states are providing less than a quarter of the recommended funding. The limited restrictions on tobacco marketing imposed by the tobacco settlement have failed to curtail the tobacco industry’s ability to aggressively market its products. Annual tobacco marketing expenditures have increased by 94 percent, from $6.9 billion in 1998 to $13.4 billion in 2005, the most recent year for which the Federal Trade Commission has reported such data. The tobacco companies spend nearly $19 to market tobacco products for every $1 the states spend to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. According to the report and the FY2009 Rankings of Funding for State Tobacco Prevention Programs, Ohio ranked 45th in the amount of money utilized from the state tobacco settlement funds for tobacco prevention for kids. The report showed that Ohio is spending less than 5 percent of the level recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on tobacco prevention programs. Ohio currently spends $7.1 million a year on such programs, while the CDC recommends $145 million a year, according to the report. According to the report the tobacco industry spends $724 million a year on marketing in Ohio. The report noted that this year alone, the states will collect $24.6 billion in revenue from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend less than three percent of it on tobacco prevention programs. It would take just 15 percent of this tobacco revenue to fund tobacco prevention programs in every state at CDC-recommended levels. This report illustrates why the AMCNO and the Investing in Tobacco Free Youth Coalition in Ohio are advocating for legislation that would increase the tax on other tobacco products (OTP) to provide for additional funding for tobacco cessation programs in Ohio. We plan to continue our efforts on this initiative with the Governor and with new General Assembly beginning in 2009. To view the full report as well as the rankings by states to go:
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/settlements/2009/fullreport.pdf
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