Connecticut Smoking Prevention Programs

Connecticut is tied for last in the nation in funding programs to prevent kids from smoking cigarettes and help smokers quit, according to a national report released recently by a coalition of public health organizations.

Connecticut is one of five states that have budgeted zero state funds for cheap cigarette online prevention programs this year. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that Connecticut spend $43.9 million a year on cheap cigarettes prevention. Other key findings for Connecticut include:

• Connecticut this year will collect $509 million in revenue from the 1998 buy cigarette online settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend none of it on tobacco prevention programs.

• Since 2009, Connecticut has cut state funding for tobacco prevention from $7.4 million to zero.

• The tobacco companies spend $98.4 million a year to market their products in Connecticut.

The annual report on states' funding of tobacco prevention programs, titled "A Broken Promise to Our Children: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 13 Years Later," was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.

For years, Connecticut was one of the worst states in the nation in funding tobacco prevention, providing little or no funding. Connecticut improved significantly in fiscal year 2009, but has again eliminated funding and fallen to last in the nation.

"By eliminating funding for tobacco prevention, Connecticut's leaders have let down the state's kids and put the state's progress against tobacco at risk," said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "To continue reducing smoking cigarettes, it is critical that Connecticut quickly increase funding for tobacco prevention. Even in these difficult budget times, tobacco prevention is a smart investment that saves lives and saves money by reducing tobacco-related health care costs."

In Connecticut, 15.3% of high school students smoke cigarettes and 4,300 more kids become regular smokers each year. Tobacco annually claims 4,700 lives and costs the state $1.6 billion in health care bills.

Nationally, the report finds that most states are failing to adequately fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs. Altogether, the states have cut funding for these programs to the lowest level since 1999, when they first started receiving tobacco settlement payments. Key national findings of the report include:

• The states this year will collect $25.6 billion from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend just 1.8% ($456.7 million) of it on tobacco prevention programs. This means the states are spending less than two cents of every dollar in tobacco revenue to fight tobacco use.

• States have cut funding for tobacco prevention programs by 12% ($61.2 million) in the past year and by 36% ($260.5 million) in the past four years.

• Only two states — Alaska and North Dakota — currently fund tobacco prevention programs at the CDC-recommended level.

The report warns that the nation's progress in reducing smoking cigarettes is at risk unless states increase funding for programs to prevent kids from smoking cigarettes and help smokers quit. The U.S. has significantly reduced smoking cigarettes among both youth and adults, but 19.3% of adults and 19.5% of high school students still smoke.

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 people and costing $96 billion in health care bills each year.

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Shame On Iowa For Diverting Tobacco Money

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids just came out with a report, “A Broken Promise to our Children: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 13 Years Later.”

This report details how much each state received in the cigarettes online settlement and how little of that money actually goes toward cheap cigarettes prevention. I am appalled to learn that in Iowa, only 1.1 percent of this settlement money goes to cigarettes prevention. The rest of it is put in the general fund.

With Big Tobacco pouring millions into our state daily to market its deadly product to youth, our elected officials should be ashamed that not only have they been cutting the tobacco prevention and education funding, but that they also don’t use the settlement money as it was intended.

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Youth To Youth Kids Talk Tobacco With FDA

Drug and alcohol prevention advocates traveled to Boston last month to represent Dover Youth to Youth on their cigarettes online prevention tactics.

Youth to Youth members Kaitlyn Hutchins and Nick Piscitello spoke at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Tobacco Products on how they are reaching out to their community on buy cigarette online use prevention.

The CTP is responsible for regulation of buy cigarettes products and Youth to Youth Director Dana Mitchell said his students were chosen to represent one of eight groups from across the country. Mitchell said the students were asked for information on their tobacco prevention activities and what suggestions on tobacco control they would have for the FDA in the future. This is the first time students have been invited to such an event. It was held on Sept. 13.

"This meeting was for the youth advocates involved in tobacco control," he said. "They only invited a handful of people."

This opportunity allowed the students to talk with FDA officials about activities in their communities. Youth to Youth has been working hard on public service announcements, educational programs with younger students and going to conventions with students from across the county.

The meeting in Boston included representatives from several youth groups from around the U.S. that worked on the tobacco issue. Students hailed from as far as New Mexico and Nevada.

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Youth Cigarettes Prevention Media Campaign Reaches Record Levels Of Awareness

“A wide reaching media campaign is an essential piece of inoculating our youth against cigarettes use,” said Dr. Adam Goldstein, Professor of Family Medicine and Director of the UNC Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program, which led the study. “Record levels of campaign awareness indicate that the campaign has reached North Carolina youth with a successful prevention message.”

Key preliminary findings of the 2011 evaluation include:

• Between 2004 and 2011, awareness of the TRU campaign ads significantly increased from 48 percent to 80 percent, and over 680,000 youths (11 to 17) in NC have now seen and are aware of the TRU campaign. This record level of awareness suggests that the campaign awareness is reaching levels observed in other state media campaigns that have successfully reduced youth smoking cigarettes.
• More than 94 percent of NC youths who had seen the TRU ads reported they were attention grabbing and convincing, and more than 98 percent said the ads gave good reasons not to smoke.
• Awareness of older ads from the campaign remains high, with nearly 70 percent of youth aware of campaign ads that aired between 2004 and 2010. Newer campaign ads appear to reinforce the campaign’s effective prevention message.
• Thirty-five percent of youth report awareness of a tobacco prevention group active in their school or community; among youth who did not report a group presence, 58 percent indicated interest in joining a group if one were available.

The campaign, called “Tobacco.Reality.Unfiltered.” or TRU, is sponsored by the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund (HWTF), which faces elimination as of June 30th if the current budget proposal becomes law. Researchers point to the experience of other states where tobacco prevention programs have been defunded and youth smoking cigarettes rates have subsequently increased, suggesting that the gains achieved by the TRU campaign will be reversed if the campaign ads disappear from the air on July 1.

“Losing an effective media campaign like TRU campaign will be a major setback to the youth in North Carolina and our war to prevent cancer,” adds Dr. Leah Ranney, Associate Director of the UNC Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program.

North Carolina’s Teen Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation Initiative, funded by the HWTF, has included a statewide media campaign since 2004. Previous evaluations of the TRU campaign have shown that it is an integral part of the overall initiative and has played a substantial role in achieving historically low levels of youth smoking cigarettes. TRU campaign ads feature real North Carolinians sharing their stories of the negative toll tobacco has taken on their lives. The current campaign ads feature Destini, a teenage girl from Winston Salem who lost her father to lung cancer, and Justin, a young father from Raleigh who died from lung cancer in November of 2010.

Goldstein has led several previous evaluations of the TRU campaign. The Survey Research Unit at UNC conducts telephone interviews with youth ages 11 – 17 across North Carolina. A baseline survey was conducted in March and April of 2004, with follow up surveys immediately after the fall 2004 ad campaign, immediately after the fall 2005 campaign, in 2007, four months after the major funding increase for the campaign and in January 2009, six months after the launch of a new series of ads. The latest evaluation survey began in January 2011, four months after the launch of the new campaign ads featuring Destini and Justin.

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