Posted on: Monday, April 7, 2003

EDITORIAL
Leave tobacco funds 'where they're at'

One has to wonder about the state's priorities when it's taboo to raid the Hawai'i Hurricane Relief Fund — whose surplus was intended to go back to the general fund — but it's OK to keep chipping at Hawai'i's Tobacco Prevention and Control Trust Fund.

Unlike many other states, most of Hawai'i's tobacco settlement money is commendably and appropriately going to health-related missions. However, the allocation to the specific tobacco prevention effort is dwindling to the point where — if this pattern continues — it could stop making a difference. We don't want that.

As a result of a 1998 lawsuit brought against big tobacco companies by 46 states, Hawai'i won a projected $1.2 billion to pay the daunting medical costs for smoking-related diseases. For Hawai'i, that meant an extra $40 million or so a year over the next quarter of a century.

Originally, 25 percent (an annual $10 million) was to go to the tobacco trust fund. As for the rest, 40 percent was to go to the state's rainy-day fund and 35 percent to the state Health Department for a variety of health programs such as the Children's Health Insurance Program.

However, in 2001, the Legislature halved the tobacco trust fund's cut to 12.5 percent to help pay for the new University of Hawai'i medical center in Kaka'ako. And now, a bill proposes to further reduce that allocation to 10 percent.

That doesn't leave a whole lot to work with when you consider how much taxpayers spend on smoking-related health costs. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that a successful statewide tobacco control program would cost between $11 million and $24 million a year. Hawai'i needs more smoking cessation programs and tobacco-prevention programs led by youth.

Another weapon in the war against smoking is counter-marketing, which entails challenging the effects of glitzy advertising designed to hook young smokers into a lifetime habit. Some of you may have seen an example of this in a commercial where rapper Mo Luv tells kids to "Leave 'um where they're at."

Of course, the tobacco industry spends close to $10 billion a year on nationwide marketing. Hawai'i's tobacco prevention and control trust fund can't begin to compete with that. But the fund can still make a difference in the Islands if the Legislature stops steering the money elsewhere.

This isn't simply a matter of deciding to spend money one place or another. Smoking imposes direct and daunting medical costs on our state and is the leading preventable cause of death. Using these dollars to prevent or stop smoking will save us far more than we spend.