Tobacco.org

• Anti-smoking fund in ashes 

But years of successive raids on the tobacco foundation - mostly to balance the state budget - have depleted its original $330 million endowment.

Now the fund - meant to last a lifetime and with a record of slashing smoking rates - will be snuffed out within two years, its caretakers say.

The possible fatal blow came April 2, when Gov. Ted Strickland and legislative leaders decided to snatch nearly all of the foundation's remaining investments - $230 million - to help finance a $1.57 billion jobs development program.

The move is being contested in Franklin County Court. . . .

The targeting of the tobacco foundation is " kind of baffling," said Susan Jagers, a lobbyist for the American Cancer Society of Ohio and one of the tobacco foundation's 19 appointed board members. "We've gone from a national leader to now the bottom of the barrel," Jagers said.

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