If tobacco use rises, the state will get less to discourage it?
Jump to full article: Charleston (WV) Daily Mail, 2009-06-24
Intro: THE use of tobacco by underage teen-agers is said to be on the rise in West Virginia. If it rises too much, the federal government may
reduce the state's funding for prevention efforts under the annual Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grants.
That's federal logic for you. If the need for a program rises, funding for it will be cut.
This would be like reducing aid to the state of California for unemployment compensation because the unemployment rate in California rose to 11.5 percent.
That's illogical.
There is also the problem of how this "data" was collected and what was measured to determine the rate of teen smoking in West Virginia. . . .
While it is good to try to measure the success of government programs, this does not seem to be an ideal way of measuring tobacco use by teens.
Besides, if tobacco use by minors is on the rise in West Virginia, efforts to stop it should be stepped up.
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