|
|
|
Connecticut, still smokin after all these years
Despite cigarette tax hike, state lags in anti-smoking campaigns
|
Business New Haven
5/13/2002
By: Susan Cornell
|
Connecticut is last among New England states in the amount of tobacco settlement funds spent on prevention programs for kids.
Critics argue that he state has a poor record of fighting tobacco addiction, spending significantly less than other states in the region for anti-smoking campaigns. The state's cigarette tax - 50 cents a pack before it more than doubled to $1.11 on April 3 - is lower than any New England state's except for Vermont.
Anti-smoking advocates lauded the 1998 Attorney General's Settlement Agreement between the 50 states and the five big tobacco companies. In exchange for the states agreeing to drop their lawsuits against the companies, the Big Five agreed to pay the states more than $200 billion over 25 years to compensate for the cost of caring for smoking-related illnesses.
Connecticut received $163.6 million in 2000 and an additional $128.5 million in 2001 from the settlement. It will receive some $154 million in 2002 and nearly $156 million in 2003. By 2025, Connecticut will have pocketed $3.92 billion.
An anti-tobacco trust fund, which now has $52 million in it, has been set up. But the state can spend only the interest from that account.
“It's unfortunate that Connecticut ranks among the bottom when we're one of the richest states in the nation,” said Kevin Graff, director of the Mobilize Against Tobacco for Children's Health (MATCH) Coalition, an umbrella organization of anti-smoking groups throughout the state. Graff also said that there is a discrepancy between the money the state is spending for anti-smoking programs and the money it's receiving.
High on anti-smoking advocates' legislative agenda is a change in state laws to allow cities and towns, in addition to the state, to pass ordinances regulating smoking. Preemption is when a town is forbidden to pass a law against tobacco that is stronger than a law at the state level.
For example, Connecticut's law for restaurants states “all public restaurants that can seat 75 people or more are to be smoke-free except in a specifically designated smoking area.” Because this is a state law, and Connecticut has preemption, no town can say that it wants to make all of its restaurants completely smoke-free.
“Repeal of preemption - allowing towns to regulate smoking - is one of the biggest issues,” Graff explains. “The public-health community sees allowing towns to enact legislation as one of the most effective ways to decrease the amount of environmental smoke emitted. But big tobacco companies are opposed because they can't win nearly as often as if they had to battle at the state level. It's easier to battle 50 legislatures a year than thousands of different towns.”
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that Connecticut should spend at least $21 million a year to get people to stop smoking. The CDC ranks the state 43rd of the 51 states and the District of Columbia for its anti-smoking work.
Comparatively, Connecticut spends far less per capita than its neighbors on anti-smoking projects - about 31 cents per person, compared to $7 in Massachusetts, $1.65 in New York, $2.32 in Rhode Island, $11 in Vermont, $2.56 in New Hampshire and $15.16 in Maine.
Some anti-smoking advocates believe that one effective way to get people to stop smoking is to tax cigarettes so heavily that some people, especially teenagers, simply can't afford to buy them. But until April 3, Connecticut had a 50-cent tax levy on cigarettes, compared to $1.11 in New York, 76 cents in Massachusetts, 74 cents in Maine and 52 cents in New Hampshire. Vermont puffers pay only 44 cents a pack in taxes.
Earlier this year, state legislators approved the first major tax hike in seven years, which more than doubles the tax and gives Connecticut the third-highest cigarette tax in the nation.
Neither insurers nor the state Medicaid program pay for smoking-cessation programs for clients.
Graff says that there's long been a debate between physician services and prevention. “We should split our resources between those causes,” he said. “Cessation has a defined outcome, but prevention and counter-marketing does indeed work,” he notes. “Connecticut should concentrate efforts on 1) smoking cessation; 2) prevention and counter-marketing; and 3) expanding Medicaid to cover smoking cessation. Connecticut is woefully inadequate here.”
New Haven State Sen. Martin M. Looney (D-11), chairman of the legislature's Finance Committee, had called for an increase of 65 cents per pack. Looney says there were “compelling reasons to increase the tax on cigarettes. First, an increase in the price of cigarettes due to the tax increase will serve over time to discourage consumption of this harmful product; second, since New York's tax is now $1.11 per pack, Rhode Island's tax is $1.00 and Massachusetts' tax 76 cents, Connecticut will not be placing our retailers near our state's border at a competitive disadvantage.”
Adds Looney: “While increasing a tax is always controversial, there are few situations where an increase not only generates needed revenue to support vital programs and services but also serves the public-policy goal of discouraging consumption of a dangerous product. Connecticut should not be seen as more supportive of smoking than neighboring states as evidenced by its tax policy.”
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
