Tobacco.org

EDITORIAL: Progress goes up in smoke  

THE USE OF billions in payments from the 1998 tobacco settlement to bring down the incidence of smoking, especially among young people, is a tale of two states. Maine, which had some of the highest rates of smoking in the country 10 years ago, has consistently spent a larger share of its settlement on smoking prevention and cessation programs - last year it was 62 percent of the recommendation of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Massachusetts, by contrast, spent 15 percent of the recommended amount, despite being an early national leader in anti-smoking campaigns.

The predictable results: Maine now has a lower percentage of high school students who smoke or use smokeless tobacco products than Massachusetts; indeed, the incidence of high school smoking declined 64 percent in Maine over the past 10 years.

The current budget crisis has put pressure on all states to divert even more tobacco settlement money to other uses. But Massachusetts has been a particular laggard, spending just 1.8 percent of the settlement funds as originally intended. . . .

The state's political leaders are forever saying that prevention is the best way to reduce healthcare costs and preserve the gains in access to care that have been made through the state's landmark universal coverage law. There's no good excuse for allowing quite so much in proven preventative measures to be squandered.

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