National Report: Illinois Budget Delay Hurting State Efforts To Protect Kids from Tobacco, Help Smokers Quit

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As Illinois leaders work to resolve a budget impasse, a new report released today by a coalition of public health organizations urges the state to increase funding for programs that prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit.

According to the report, tobacco companies spend $400 million each year to market their deadly and addictive products in Illinois. But because of the budget stalemate, Illinois has yet to provide any funding this year for tobacco prevention and cessation programs that are proven to save lives and health care dollars.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that Illinois spend $136.7 million annually on tobacco prevention and cessation programs. For the past three years, funding for these programs held steady at $11.1 million, barely 8 percent of what the CDC recommends.

Other key findings for Illinois include:

• Illinois will collect $1.1 billion this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, meaning the state has plenty of tobacco revenue to increase funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs.
• In Illinois, 14.1 percent of high school students smoke, and 8,700 kids become regular smokers each year. Tobacco claims 18,300 lives and costs the state $5.5 billion in health care bills annually.

The report, titled "Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 17 Years Later," was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights and Truth Initiative.

The report assesses whether the states kept their promise to use a significant portion of their settlement funds – estimated to total $246 billion over the first 25 years – to fight tobacco use. The states also collect billions of dollars more each year from tobacco taxes.

In April, Gov. Bruce Rauner jeopardized the state's limited efforts against tobacco when he temporarily cut off funds to the Illinois Tobacco Quitline – in the middle of a national ad campaign encouraging smokers to quit. In 2014, more than 96,000 smokers called the state's quitline asking for help. The program, which saves lives and millions of dollars in health care costs, is a vital and cost-effective resource in the fight to help smokers quit and reduce tobacco's terrible toll on Illinois.

"The tobacco companies are as relentless as ever in marketing the lethal products, so it is critical that Illinois step up its efforts to protect kids from tobacco addiction and help smokers quit," said Matthew L. Myers, President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Illinois is putting its children at risk and costing taxpayers billions by failing to properly fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs that are proven to save lives and money."

Nationally, the report finds that:

• Most states fail to sufficiently fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs. The states will collect $25.8 billion this year from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 1.8 percent of it ($468 million) on tobacco prevention programs.
• The $468 million the states have budgeted for tobacco prevention is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion the CDC recommends. Only one state – North Dakota – is funding tobacco prevention programs at CDC-recommended levels.
• States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs continue to deliver impressive results. Florida, with one of the longest-running programs, reduced its high school smoking rate to just 6.9 percent this year, one of the lowest rates ever reported by any state and a 75 percent decline since 1998. North Dakota, which ranks first for the third year in a row in this report, cut smoking among high school students by nearly half from 2009 to 2015 (from 22.4 percent to 11.7 percent).

Insufficient prevention funding makes it difficult for states to combat the pervasive marketing of Big Tobacco. Nationwide, tobacco companies spend $9.6 billion a year – more than one million dollars every hour – to market their products, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Industry tactics that entice kids include:

• Widespread advertising, prime product placement and price discounts in stores, which make tobacco products appealing and affordable to kids.
• Ads in magazines with large youth readership, such as Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone.
• Candy- and fruit-flavored tobacco products such as small cigars and electronic cigarettes. E-cigarette companies have drastically ramped up their marketing efforts in recent years as well. Recent data show that youth use of e-cigarettes has skyrocketed, and that high school boys now smoke cigars at about the same rate as cigarettes.

Tobacco use kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year.

The full report and state-specific information can be found at www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/settlements.

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SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

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http://www.tobaccofreekids.org