State trails in tobacco prevention

Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2003 | 1:07 a.m.

Five years after the landmark financial settlement with the tobacco companies, Nevada ranks 25th in the nation in funding programs to protect children from tobacco, according to a national report released today by a coalition of public health organizations.

The report found that Nevada spends 31.9 percent of the minimum amount that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended the state spend for tobacco prevention.

The report, "A Broken Promise to Our Children," was issued by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association. It concluded that most states have failed to keep their commitments to use a significant portion of their settlement funds for tobacco prevention.

The CDC has recommended that Nevada spend at least $13.5 million a year on tobacco prevention. The state's actual spending is $4.3 million a year. That's just 2.5 percent of the $170.2 million in tobacco revenues the state will receive in 2004 from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes.

In contrast, the tobacco companies spend $85 million a year to market their products in Nevada, which amounts to 20 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention, the report said.

None of the members of the Task Force for the Fund for a Healthy Nevada, who were meeting this morning in Las Vegas, said they were familiar with the study.

They said that when the settlement money was distributed by the Legislature in 1999, half was earmarked for the Millennium Scholarship, 30 percent to independent living grants and only 20 percent for all public health programs, including those for the elderly, children and disabled and for tobacco prevention.

Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, D-Las Vegas, said the entire task force would prefer more of the settlement money go toward tobacco prevention.

"The whole settlement was for health care and prevention," she said.

Dr. Elizabeth Fildes, a task force member, said tobacco prevention is "not just the tobacco control people's problem, it's everyone's problem." "In our state there is such a need for pub lic health everywhere," Fildes said. "I think it is a worthy goal to work on it." Only four states -- Arkansas, Delaware, Maine and Mississippi -- currently fund tobacco prevention programs at the minimum level recommended by CDC.

The report was released at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to examine the use of tobacco settlement funds.

"Nevada has invested a modest amount in protecting its kids from tobacco, but it is falling far short of the minimum amount recommended by the experts at the CDC," William V. Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said.

Corr said health officials have evidence that tobacco prevention programs prevent children from smoking.

"Even in these difficult budget times, tobacco prevention remains one of the smartest and most fiscally responsible investments that Nevada can make," Corr said.

Spending money to prevent children from becoming smokers saves money in the long run because it cuts down on the larger amounts of money that will be spent later on such things as health care for smokingrelated illnesses, proponents of the antismoking spending say.

The November 1998 tobacco settlement involved 46 states, including Nevada. It requires the tobacco companies to make annual payments to the states in perpetuity as reimbursement for health care costs related to tobacco use.

These payments are estimated to total $246 billion over the first 25 years of the agreement.