The anti-smoking program is feeling the pain of a dramatic cut in funding
Washington state’s anti-smoking campaign could be going, well, up in smoke.
Tobacco Prevention and Control Program has been devastated by budget cuts this year, according to prevention advocates who fear the lapse in funding could trigger an uptick in smoking rates. The budget has essentially been cut in half from $28.5 million a year to $15 million.
Smoking in the state has been decreasing for the past decade to the point where Washington has the sixth-lowest rate in the country, according to The Seattle Times.
“The situation is certainly disappointing, it’s frustrating and it’s a scary place we’re in,” said Lucy Culp, government-affairs director for the American Heart Association in Washington.
We agree it is disappointing and frustrating — perhaps even scary — but let’s not put all of the blame on the current state budget cuts triggered by the downturn in the economy. This is a problem created by the Legislature and former Gov. Gary Locke.
In 2002, a time in which the state was going through a budget pinch (although not nearly as sharp as this one), lawmakers and Locke agreed to tap into the state’s $4.5 billion tobacco settlement to make ends meet. The money from Big Tobacco was to be paid out in small amounts (relatively speaking, of course) of several hundred million dollars each year.
What lawmakers did, however, was to sell the rights to future payments for 25 cents on the dollar or less. The transaction garnered the state $450 million, all of which was spent long, long ago.
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As a result, the tobacco settlement money is far less than it would have been.
We feared this would happen, which is one of several reasons we were against this move back in 2002. We saw it as being fiscally irresponsible, akin to taking out a multi-million dollar payday loan.
But what’s done is done. And we understand that tough decisions on what to fund and not fund had to be made. Tobacco prevention, while important, isn’t central to the running of state government.
At this point, let’s try to keep the damage to the anti-smoking program to a minimum. If the smoking rates begin to climb, action should be taken.
And let’s make sure this type of financial blunder doesn’t occur again.
It’s irresponsible to mortgage the future to avoid having to make tough budget decisions now. It ultimately results in having to make tougher and more costly choices later.
