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OCR Page 1 of 384/28 chaft
draft
THE AFTERMATH OF THE STATES TOBACCO SETTLEMENT:
A MID-TERM REPORT CARD
A RECORD OF PROMISES BROKEN
AND AN
OPPORTUNITY LOST
Last November, 46 states settled the cases they had filed against the
tobacco companies. When the states first filed suit against the tobacco companies,
elected officials from each of the states said that they were doing so to prevent
another generation of children from becoming addicted to tobacco and to reduce
the amount of money their citizens were spending to treat tobacco-caused disease.
When the states settled their cases, they promised that the settlement was
just the first step in their effort to reduce tobacco use, particularly among children.
Through their Attorneys General, the states pledged that the funds from the
settlement created an historic opportunity to use the tobacco companies' own
money to reduce tobacco use, even though the agreement they had just signed did
not dictate how to spend the money.
The debate over how to spend the settlement money then moved to the
states. Critically, this debate is taking place at a time when the need for the states
to take strong action to prevent tobacco use among our children is even greater
than when the states first began filing these lawsuits in 1994. Tobacco use among
teenagers is higher today than it was five years ago.
The debate also comes at a time when the evidence that comprehensive
tobacco prevention programs do work has become incontrovertible. In the last
three months, studies from Florida and Oregon have been added to earlier
research from Massachusetts and California that demonstrates that these programs
can significantly reduce tobacco use among both children and adults. The lesson
from these studies is that money spent on comprehensive tobacco prevention
programs is money well spent.
While many state legislatures are still in session and others have deferred
action on how to spend the settlement money until next year, it is not too early to
draw some preliminary conclusions. If current trends continue, the vast majority of
the states will spend little or none of the tobacco settlement money on programs
intended to prevent children from starting to smoke or on helping current tobacco
users to quit. Without the extraordinary efforts of tobacco control advocates and
key public officials, the results would be even worse.
Thus, this report documents a trail of broken promises and a public health
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