Hawai'i's legislators are considering a number of ways to close the state's budget deficit. One of the options being considered is to cut funding to community tobacco-control programs that have proven effective at helping to control spiraling healthcare costs.

Cutting those programs would be shortsighted. For one, those programs cost taxpayers nothing since they are funded by the tobacco companies' own money through their legal settlement with the state, intended to reimburse Hawai'i taxpayers for the health costs and damages done by their products.

When proposing programs to the Legislature, we are always asked to present the estimated budgetary costs for these programs. Since these community tobacco control programs are funded through the tobacco settlement, they are considered "budget neutral." After these programs were set up as budget-neutral, it seems very unfair and unjust to now consider cutting these programs and hijacking the funds for other purposes.

It seems as though these programs would be specifically penalized because they were able to pay for themselves.

Using those funds for other means would reduce the effectiveness of the community programs and potentially drive up smoking rates. While prevention programs would be cut, the tobacco companies would continue investing millions of dollars in Hawai'i to market their products to potential young, new addicts.

Cigarettes and other tobacco products add more than $300 million to the state's Medicaid bill every year while the state recoups only a third of that amount through its current cigarette tax.

Tobacco industry lobbyists worry legislators with arguments that raising tobacco taxes might result in a decline in tax revenue from those products.

First of all, we should not depend on any revenues from lethal products that cause cancer and heart disease. What legislators fail to recognize is that even if cigarette sales decline because smokers smoke less or quit, it doesn't mean that the revenue from those lost tobacco-related sales will go up in smoke.

Former smokers would have additional cash in their pockets to spend on taxable items that don't drive up their state's Medicaid costs and lost productivity.

The tobacco lobbyists also argue that cigarette taxes are regressive, since many smokers are from lower-income families. That argument turns reality on its head since that same population is the prime target for the industry's marketing efforts, and who, as a result, endure the suffering and economic harm inflicted by the industry's products. This is the population that would also benefit most from the community tobacco programs to which cuts are being considered.

With a higher cigarette tax, perhaps those smokers who quit will instead spend that new "found" cash on items that will help improve their family's status and health.

William Dang Jr., M.D., wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.

Reach William Dang Jr. at (Unknown address).