Tobacco cessation program working
LITTLE ROCK — Thousands of Arkansas teenagers either never started smoking or opted to quit in the nearly 10 years since the state began funding anti-smoking programs with money from its tobacco settlement, the state health director told legislators today.
Overall, 114,000 fewer Arkansans smoke — 21,500 high school students along with 92,400 adults — since the $1.6 billion tobacco settlement went into effect almost a decade ago, Dr. Paul Halverson told a joint subcommittee of the House and Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor committees.
“The tobacco prevention and cessation program is very cost effective, a significant success,” Halverson, director of the state Department of Health, told lawmakers.
The panel met for more than two hours Tuesday to review the $17.3 million budget of the Health Department’s Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Program. The program gets 31.1 percent of the total amount of tobacco settlement funds the state receives annually. Last year, the state received $57 million.
Sen. Bill Pritchard, D-Elkins, co-chairman of the subcommittee, asked for the budget review to determine whether the various programs are working, and to determine if there are any excess funds that could be used to fund additional drug courts across the state.
“One thing we want to do with this tobacco settlement is see if money should be shifted around,” Pritchard told lawmakers.
In June, at Pritchard’s request, a legislative panel recommended an audit of the prevention and cessation program.
Today’s meeting was the second for the panel, which is reviewing the state’s entire $1.6 billion tobacco settlement program. Pritchard said he expects to meet as many as 10 times to look at how all the money the state is to receive over 25 years under the settlement is spent.
The state has received $446 million from the agreement since 2001. Under a 2000 ballot initiative voters approved to limit spending to health-related purposes, the state has earmarked spending for smoking prevention and cessation, biosciences research, public health needs and expansion of Medicaid services.
Of the $17.3 million the state expects to receive this fiscal year for prevention and cessation, about $500,000 is designated for the breast cancer control fund, another $500,000 for the juvenile drug court treatment program, $1.5 million for drug court and substance abuse treatment programs, $300,000 for the Trails for Life fitness program and $15.2 million for various community and school tobacco prevention and cessation programs.
Also funded through the program is the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s master’s degree program in addiction studies, which receives about $700,000 annually.
Pritchard questioned why the UAPB program has a fund balance of more than $3 million and asked whether the money could be used elsewhere.
Mary Leath, assistant state health director, said the fund balance fluctuates every year depending on how much tobacco settlement money the state receives.
Rep. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, praised the academic program and said it should remain intact because it addresses a serious health concern. She cited what she described as an already wide disparity in the state between health services for blacks and whites.
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