S.C. last in country in anti-tobacco spending
South Carolina ranked dead last in the nation for funding programs to prevent children from using tobacco, 10 years after receiving nearly $1 billion in a landmark case against the tobacco industry.
The report
Click here to read the SC portion of the coaltion's report
A coalition of health organizations released a report Tuesday analyzing the amounts of money states spent on preventing and reducing tobacco use compared to the recommended spending target established by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers found that no state is funding prevention at suggested levels, and only nine states fund programs at half the CDC recommendation.
By the Numbers
Smoking in South Carolina
— 45,300 high school students (17.8 percent) smoke.
— 6,300 people younger than 18 become new daily smokers each year.
— 103,000 people younger than 18 will die prematurely from smoking.
— 718,600 adults (21.9 percent) smoke.
— 5,900 adults die each year from their own smoking.
— $1.09 billion in annual health care costs caused by smoking.
— $1 million to be spent on tobacco prevention in 2009.
— $62.2 million recommended by CDC in prevention spending for 2009.
— $114 million in revenues from tobacco taxes and settlement with tobacco industry in 2009.
South Carolina is scheduled to spend $1 million on prevention programs in fiscal 2009, which is 1.6 percent of the CDC recommended $62.2 million. Meanwhile, tobacco companies spend more than $280 million a year on marketing in the Palmetto State.
That $1 million drop in the bucket came from federal funds for tobacco prevention and cessation, according to the report. In fiscal 2008, South Carolina spent $3.3 million on tobacco prevention, $2 million from the state and $1.3 million from federal coffers.
The report, titled "A Decade of Broken Promises," was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Ten years ago, attorneys general across the country faced off against the nation's major tobacco companies to recoup the massive health-care costs associated with smoking. The settlement required tobacco companies to make annual payments in perpetuity with estimated payments of $264 billion during the first 25 years.
In 2000, South Carolina sold its future settlement proceeds to investors in exchange for a smaller lump-sum payment of $910 million, amounting to less than half the original $2.2 billion over a 25-year period.
No tobacco settlement funds have been dedicated to tobacco prevention in the state since 2003, according to the report.
To quit smoking
The American Cancer Society's 33rd Great American Smokeout is Thursday. You can call the American Cancer Society Quitline at 1-800-227-2345 to speak to a counselor.
Area hospitals and health centers also offer smoking cessation programs, including:
-- Medical University of South Carolina Health Connection, free four-week program, 792-1414.
-- Roper St. Francis Healthcare, $25 for three-session series, 402-2273.
-- Trident HealthFinders, free four-week program, 797-3463.
Lawyer Joe Rice of Motley Rice LLC served as lead negotiator for all the states in the settlement with big tobacco. "The point of the settlement was to do something about tobacco-related disease and underage smoking," Rice said.
The disconnect between the intent of the settlement fund and its actual use occurred because the attorneys general in most states have no authority to appropriate funding, he said. In South Carolina, the money went to the Legislature, where it was used as general funds.
The other tobacco-related revenue examined by researchers was taxes. South Carolina has the lowest cigarette tax in the nation at 7 cents per pack, compared with the national average of $1.19 per pack.
A plan to increase the tax to 57 cents per pack passed the Legislature earlier this year, but Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed the bill.
While the majority of the revenue in that plan was aimed at expanding health care coverage for children, $5 million would have gone toward prevention.
Rep. Rex Rice, R-Easley, an advocate who has led the charge of increasing the cigarette tax, said the CDC's recommended $62.2 million is untenable, but $5 million could be a good start.
"We definitely need to spend the money, but we're not willing to jump up to the plate," Rice said.
Yvonne Wenger contributed to this report. Reach Jill Coley at 937-5719 or jcoley@postandcourier.com.
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Comments
ColdBud (anonymous) says...
My wife and I both smoke. Neither one of us is happy that we smoke, but we're not ready to quit just yet. I have three kids from my first marriage and we have one together. None of them smoke. They are all 19 and older now and all of them find smoking disgusting. My wife and I take credit for that attitude. We explained to them how easy it is to become addicted, how expensive it can be and how many health problems smoking can cause.
My Point? As with just about anything else with children, parents are the key, not government. South Carolina doesn't need to spend a penny on anti-smoking campaigns for children. Let the parents do their jobs.
November 19, 2008 at 6:47 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
msplacedinsc (anonymous) says...
CB,
Glad to hear that your children don't smoke but the problem with your statment "Let parents do their job" is the problem. Parents aren't doing their job teaching the dangers of smoking, drinking, drugs and so on and so on! Sad but true? So what did the State of SC do with the windfall money from the tobacco settlement? God only knows?
SC last in just about every state mandated programs in the country!
Keep up the good work Governor Sanford
November 19, 2008 at 7:42 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Neponset (anonymous) says...
This tobacco lawsuit business is a joke - the lawyers try to assure us they are just trying to help people - in reality they mostly are helped themselves and politicians. I know, one of the Ness Mot lawyers lives across the street some of the time and spends a lot of time in an expensive condo in NYC. In the mean time the smoker is getting screwed with higher and higher prices for a pack of cigs. I wish all smokers would quit today and stop this gravy train
November 19, 2008 at 7:59 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ColdBud (anonymous) says...
msplacedinsc, I will agree that parents are not doing their jobs in a lot cases. I do not, however, feel that I should pick up their slack with my tax dollars.
November 19, 2008 at 8:17 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
dhshjh (anonymous) says...
Coldbud, I agree. Parents need to take more responsibility with their own children and stop expecting our government to do everything.
November 19, 2008 at 9 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
commonsence (anonymous) says...
CB...
you may not want your tax dollars to fund prevention programs but you are ALREADY bankrolling smokers through increased health care costs. Other states have figured out that prevention programs are a cheaper alternative to paying out for health-related treatment later on.
November 19, 2008 at 9:05 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
islandbenzbc (anonymous) says...
The $910 million question is where did the money go? That money would have helped with the $480 million shortfall this year...It would also be nice if the legislature would pass a realistic budget this year! Too much to ask, I guess...
November 19, 2008 at 9:06 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
beefsaver (anonymous) says...
ColdBud, you raise an excellent point about the role that parents should be playing in this health issue. It is commendable that you've succeeded in keeping your kids off tobacco despite your addiction. As MsPlacedInSC said, however, many parents are failing at this just as they fail to get their kids to study, exercise, or eat right. But why should we use tax money, or in this case any of the $910M from the settlement to pick up their slack?
The answer is simple: because their poor decisions cost you and I a lot of money. Health insurance, something anyone that wants medical care needs, is expensive because it must cover appropriate risk (and of course profit margin, but that's a different topic) for the insured populace. The diseases brought upon by smoking (athsma in kids, emphysema, lung cancer, etc...) are incredibly costly to treat, and the burden of their treatment must be spread around. As you seem to be a fiscal conservative, this notion no doubt irritates you... irresponsible people with their hands out for more of our money!
In this case, an effective education and treatment program, along with funding of cessation programs is an investment of our money (an ounce of prevention) to allay the cost of significantly higher pay-outs later (pound of cure). The burden on the public health system, medicare, and yes your health insurance premiums is already taking the money out of your wallet. I'm all for stemming the flow, it seems the fiscally responsible thing to do.
November 19, 2008 at 9:16 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
commonsence (anonymous) says...
nicely said kev...this is what I was alluding to in my condensed version.
November 19, 2008 at 9:28 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
NativeSon (anonymous) says...
And yet, South Carolina restaurants and retail businesses continue to rape the states children by allowing smoking in their establishments!
Many parents have discovered that they should not be smoking in close proximity to any child and yet many haven't a clue.
Until incompetents such as James Island stupidvisors stop allowing insanity, this foolishness will continue.
Remember, smokers, the opposite of LOVE is selfishness!
November 19, 2008 at 9:36 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
beefsaver (anonymous) says...
Commonsence, you're just too quick for me. I'm not used to the comments coming this fast and furious on the P&C boards!
November 19, 2008 at 9:44 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ColdBud (anonymous) says...
I know smoking can cause health problems, but they cry that tax payers are supporting the health care of smokers is abit hypocritical when so many other problems cause so many other health issues. While I smoke, I seldom catch a cold and I've never been to the doctor with smoking related health problems. I have been to the doctor for broken bones, dislocated shoulders, torn miniscus' and such. All of those problems are from playing high school football and spending 20 years working on submarines. I know a lot of people that smoke. I only know of one that has a health issue that "might" be caused by her smoking. I know a lot of fat people and each and every one of them has health issues related to their weight.\\I'm not saying that smoking is good. Don't get me wrong. I'm not even saying that it is OK. What I am saying is that we have MANY health issues in the Untied States caused by MANY different things and yet the only issues ever discussed are the smoking problems. FYI, since I turned 18, I have paid for all of my health related problems. I haven't cost any one of you one cent to take care of me. Since I started working, I've missed only one day of work that wasn't related to a football related surgery and that was due to a hangover after my 19th birthday (19 was the legal drinking age at the time). Smoking doesn't always make someone a sick bay commando.
I'm sure that smoking does cost all of us money. What I don't understand though is why all of the other recurring health concerns are never discussed. Why is no one hollering for all high school sports to be abolished when countless are injured in the United States every year playing high school sports? Why aren't fat people being treated like second class citizens? Why aren't skateboards against the law? Why do we build cars that can go fast when we know speed kills?
My point is simple... smoking is a bad, nasty habit. Teach your kids not to smoke. Don't waste government money in doing so.
Had my parents taught me that I was too skinny to play high school football... I'd be a lot healthier now :)
November 19, 2008 at 9:44 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
inthelowcountry (anonymous) says...
What's being missed here is that the funding for these anti-tobacco programs is coming from the tobacco companies themselves, not the taxpayer. Yet the article states, "No tobacco settlement funds have been dedicated to tobacco prevention in the state since 2003, according to the report." Who knows where these funds are being used, but they are not being spent on their intended purpose--to stop people (especially kids) from smoking. This is reprehensible and indicative, along with Sanford's vetoing a higher tax on cigarettes, of a state that will do anything for Big Tobacco. Like the smoker at the next table, this sickens me.
November 19, 2008 at 10:19 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
beefsaver (anonymous) says...
ColdBud... you were a 20-year bubblehead and you've never met anyone with health detriment from smoking? Consider my mind blown.
Your argument against high-school sports is spurious. Chronic diseases cost enormous sums to treat. Sports injuries are not really "chronic diseases," though your aching shoulder and my right quad (marathon injury) might want to disagree. No one is dying from their ACL tear. No one has cancer from an old wrist injury. In fact the playing of sports has been shown to improve peoples' life-long health and fitness, thus lowering the burden that their health care places on the rest of us.
The diseases associated with smoking are latent in their onset and chronic in their effects... long-term vision must be applied to examining their impact. Your success in not having a smoking-related illness is statistically insignificant when one is discussing public policy, and thus public cost.
Unless I'm assuming wrong, you're a retired sailor, right? You have VA benefits and they'll cover any care associated with service-connected injury. Since you smoked in the service, any care related to sickness developed later in life would be handled by the VA. Where does the VA get its funding? I apologize if you meant that you were not a sailor when you referenced "20 years working on submarines."
November 19, 2008 at 10:52 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
JF (anonymous) says...
Too bad the big law firms like Ness Motley wrote no provisions on how the settlement money was to be spent. You can however see how the lawyers money was spent. Check out the huge yacht owned by Motley Rice docked at the City Marina! It was never about stopping smoking. The whole settlement was a way for high powered firms and state govenrment to shake down tobacco companies.
By now everyone knows smoking is dangerous to their health.
I say if people want to abuse themselves by smoking, that is their choice, just like people who eat too much, drink to much, or refuse to exercise. If parents don't care enough or have enough time to discourage their kids from smoking there is a much larger problem.
November 19, 2008 at 10:56 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
GermanyXO (anonymous) says...
islandbenzbc asked where all the money went...
The article states it was put in the state's general fund. I challenge the legislature to prove to us that the money hasn't already been allocated to keep our state's unemployment benefit/tax break program from bankruptcy. Well, maybe a significant percentage was likely taken which the legislature likely uses the cigarette tax to pay back into the fund over time (how long is anyone's guess). Wouldn't it be ironic if money the state won to fund smoking prevention were used by beneficiaries to buy cigarettes? Wow, who is willing to bet that our beloved South Carolina is only spending $1M for smoking prevention in 2009, because it can't face us SC residents and tell us they gave rest of the money to others among us to buy cigarettes among other things that have nothing to do with smoking prevention?
November 19, 2008 at 10:57 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
bigwhip (anonymous) says...
Leave it to our Columbia pols to let that amount of money just disappear. Does anyone get that giddy feeling surprise over this.
November 19, 2008 at 11:09 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
willbillbedamned (anonymous) says...
The real point is that once again S.C. has failed it's children. The budget cuts were made mostly on education and programs that benefit children.I think that S.C. is predominantly pedophiles because the kids here are always taking it in the azz.
November 19, 2008 at 12:11 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
UrGatorbait (anonymous) says...
Tax them and tax them some more. With the economy in the tank, now is an optimal time to tax 'em.
SC fail it's children? Never. Education cuts? Naw they are trying to be 51st in the nation in education.
Smoking is a factor in obesity, you have no energy to do anything beyond daily functions, you buy a large soda with the cigs, a candy bar/chips and then they wonder why they are fat.
November 19, 2008 at 1:02 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
I_Love_d_Peninsula (anonymous) says...
"South Carolina ranked dead last in the nation for funding programs to prevent children from using tobacco, 10 years after receiving nearly $1 billion in a landmark case against the tobacco industry"
STUPID,STUPID,STUPID!
November 19, 2008 at 1:02 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
I_Love_d_Peninsula (anonymous) says...
I personally have known, yes past tense, several people who have died in a pitiful, miserable, painful manner due to smoking.
Yet their deaths could have been prevented if they would have given up the butts. Pun intended.
I used to smoke many, many years ago and gave it up because I listened to my six yr old son, who came to me crying and said, "I don't want you to be like that, ( he had seen a TV commercial with a man who had cancer of the larnyx and had to put his finger over a hole in his throat in order to speak) please don't smoke anymore.
That was enough to give up cigerettes, Newports, that day and I never looked back.
If the look in your kids eyes do not motivate you to change your life, then I have nothing to say. nuff said.
November 19, 2008 at 1:21 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
yird (anonymous) says...
What a bunch of sickening PC anti smoking zealots. I have smoked since I was 15 and at 70 can do sustained physical work along side people half my age.
The comment about smoking contributing to obesity has about as much credibility as most these spurious anti smoking surveys that claim smoking is responsible for everything from acne to the burgeoning national debt.
I don't like eating in a smoke filled restaurant so I do not patronize them.
To run a smoke free or smoke filled establishment should be the owners prerogative, not that of a bunch of nosy busy bodies who probably would never eat in the place they are whining about.
What's next after tobacco is outlawed, chewing gum, cause some jerk got it stuck on his shoe downtown and fell on his butt trying to remove it?
America, home of the bra----- nannies!
November 19, 2008 at 5:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
yird (anonymous) says...
After thought,
Posted by JimIslander on November 19, 2008 at 7:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Sheesh....South Carolina is once again last in the nation on an important health issue.
The same state that voted in republicans AGAIN is still the laughing stock of the USA.
Go figure...
=========================================================
I don't approve of the government getting involved in the medical field but in your case I'd be in favor of the state paying to have you placed in a quite padded cell and giving you a steady supply of laudanum.
November 19, 2008 at 5:36 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
stonehead (anonymous) says...
It's true that smoking is singled out to pay for its ills while there are many other questionable behaviors get a free pass. It seems that a good solution is to let the market to decide these factors, to allow it to price the health insurance premium based on various risk factors. It seems that the auto insurance model could work reasonably well for this. Let the insurance companies offer the tiered premium pricing to individuals based on statistical risk factors. So smokers, no doubt you'll have to pay more for your insurance. If you get picked up for drunk driving, your auto insurance premium goes up, and so will your health insurance. Sorry old people, we'll have to pay more, too, 'cause age will most likely matters.
I guess this is more or less McCain's health insurance idea. I have to say it would have been a good idea. People who pose risks to the pool should pay more to insurance. Auto insurance does it, life insurance does it, why not health insurance?
I do believe that everyone should have the right to health insurance. So with a risk tiered health insurance market there will need to be some kind of safety net in place so that the needy and people with pre-conditions can receive reasonable coverage.
November 19, 2008 at 8:01 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Carolina_Politics (anonymous) says...
Why does South Carolina need to spend any money to tobacco prevention in the first place? It's not the government's job to educate children on the dangers of tobacco. That's their parents' jobs.
http://www.carolinapoliticsonline.com...
November 19, 2008 at 9:47 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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