TEHRAN, December 03 -"We could have the first tobacco-free generation... if states spent more money," one stop-smoking advocate said.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -"We could have the first tobacco-free generation... if states spent more money," one stop-smoking advocate said.
November quietly marked the 20th anniversary of the historic Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement between 46 states, the District of Columbia and four major tobacco companies that changed the landscape of advertising and protections in connection with the industry.
Despite those changes -- along with unprecedented drops in adult smoking -- many advocates charge that the money made available for cessation efforts are not being used that way by some state governments.
The 1998 agreement established a fund where the tobacco companies pay states billions annually for smoking-related healthcare costs, impose permanent restrictions on tobacco marketing and contribute $1.5 billion to an entity dedicated to counter-advertising and public education.
In large part due to the 1998 agreement, smoking in the United States is at its lowest level since 1951, and per capita use has not been so low since the 1930s, even though the U.S. population has doubled in the last seven decades, according to the National Association of Attorneys General.
John Schachter, spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said there have been many missed opportunities because states have repurposed their tobacco funds.
"We've made incredible progress over the last 20 years bringing down smoking rates for adults and youth," Schachter told UPI. "There's still a lot of works to be done. In light of the billions of dollars the tobacco settlement yielded, it would be great if more of the states used it for tobacco prevention and cessation.
"We only have a few states that devote remotely close to the money needed for those programs. We could really have the first tobacco-free generation if states spent more money on top of other policies that we've supported."
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said the annual payments will have netted states $246 billion by 2023. They charge, though, that most states have consistently fallen far short of using that money to implement recommendations made by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For fiscal 2018, states provided just 22 percent of the recommended funding to such prevention and cessation efforts.
"Despite having evidence that tobacco control efforts and programs save lives, in the past 20 years states have by and large failed to fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs at the levels needed to drive down smoking rates," Deb Brown, chief mission officer of the American Lung Association, told UPI.
"Fortunately, the [tobacco companies'] annual payments to states do not have an end date, and so our state leaders still have the opportunity to do the right thing and save lives by fully funding tobacco prevention efforts."
Source: UPI