Two recent events underscore big problems with the way society tries to fight tobacco use.
First, a new Harvard study came out alleging that the tobacco industry manipulated menthol levels in cigarettes to hook young smokers in violation of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, which bans tobacco companies from targeting youths. And second, billionaires Michael R. Bloomberg and Bill Gates last week threw their support behind a new $500 million worldwide effort to stop smoking.
Whatever the tobacco companies may have done with menthol levels, the bigger scandal is how states have misspent the billions paid to them by the tobacco industry. And however well-intentioned, the Gates-Bloomberg effort, which involves the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is likely to fail because the tobacco control programs that it will fund - featuring such things as higher taxes, smoking bans and advertising restrictions - have failed before. These multiple shortcomings point to the need for a new, more effective approach to handling, and funding, tobacco prevention.
The Master Settlement Agreement resulted in a payment of $206 billion by the tobacco industry to 46 states over 25 years for smoking prevention. The states also receive annual payments in perpetuity based on inflation and cigarette sales.
When the agreement was signed, the state attorneys general pledged that this massive windfall would go toward funding smoking prevention programs. However, from the moment the states got their hands on the tobacco settlement money, this has not been the case. Instead of being spent on smoking prevention, the billions have gone to such things as expanded broadband cable networks, museum development, sewer upgrades, new schools and parks, economic development and general tax rebates.
Maryland's share of the settlement is $4.4 billion over 25 years. Yet the state falls short of the minimum amount recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for state tobacco prevention spending: $30.3 million per year. According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, in fiscal year 2007, Maryland spent only $18.7 million from tobacco settlement and tax revenues to prevent and reduce tobacco use.
The CDC recommends that the states invest 20 percent to 25 percent of the money they receive in tobacco control. Only three states (Maine, Delaware and Colorado) are funding their smoking prevention efforts at the CDC-recommended level. According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the states will receive $24.9 billion this year from the settlement and tobacco taxes, of which they will spend approximately 3 percent on tobacco control.
