Tobacco foes fuming at Mass.
Slam state for underfunding efforts to cut down smoking
The state isn’t spending enough of the $864 million it gets from tobacco-related revenue on helping smokers quit and preventing people from picking up the habit, anti-tobacco proponents say.
One advocate is calling for all of the estimated $6 million in new revenue from Gov. Charlie Baker’s proposed e-cigarette tax to go entirely toward those types of programs.
“I think all revenue from e-cigarettes should go to bolster the tobacco funding, absolutely. The program would still be woefully underfunded, but it would have a much higher amount than they do now,” Kevin O’Flaherty, Northeast director of advocacy for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said. “We have to do more to try to address this new threat.”
Massachusetts has earned an “F” grade in tobacco prevention and control program funding for the past two years from the American Lung Association (ALA), partly because it’s spending less than a half a percent, 0.48, of the $864.5 million coming in annually from cigarette-related revenue on programs to prevent people from smoking or helping them quit.
The tax comes at a time when youth vaping is on the rise, deemed an epidemic by the surgeon general, and new research shows e-cigarette users are 6.17 times more likely to smoke cigarettes, according to O’Flaherty.
“It’s still a big problem,” said Elizabeth Hamlin-Berlinger, director of advocacy at the American Lung Association.
Tobacco is taking a toll on Massachusetts, Hamlin-Berlinger said, pointing to more than $4 billion in health care costs as well as more than 9,000 deaths attributed to smoking annually. “If we use tobacco cessation programs as a way to mitigate these problems and this cost, in the long term it will save Massachusetts not only money but lives that are, right now, needlessly being lost.”
Approximately $4.2 million is being spent on smoking cessation and prevention programs in fiscal year 2019, according to the Department of Administration and Finance. That spending amounts to approximately 6 percent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s recommended $66.9 million for Massachusetts.
“For a state that prides itself on being a leader in public health and trying to have the healthiest citizens and residents as possible, 6 percent of what they should be spending, I think, is an embarrassment,” O’Flaherty said.
Tobacco-related revenue includes taxes and money from the Master Settlement Agreement that was reached in 1998 by nearly all states and U.S. territories with the four largest cigarette manufacturers in the country, requiring these companies to pay the states billions of dollars annually forever.
Over the past few fiscal years, Massachusetts received $257 million in 2016, $254 million in 2017 and $243 million in 2018 from the agreement, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
By statute, approximately 10 percent of that revenue is dedicated to funding future public employee retiree health care benefits, according to the Department of Administration and Finance. Beyond that, the money from the MSA is unrestricted and goes into the state’s general fund.
Meanwhile, the state raked in more than $594 million in cigarette tax revenue in fiscal year 2018 and $619 million in fiscal year 2017, state records show. Massachusetts scored considerably better when it came to taxes, earning an “A” and “B” grade from the ALA in the past two years.
The commonwealth has also received a “C” grade from the ALA for its tobacco cessation services, or programs to help people quit.
Baker’s office pointed to a law that raised the legal age to buy tobacco products in Massachusetts to 21.
“They’re being held back by the lack of funding for the tobacco control program,” Hamlin-Berlinger said. “Putting all these pieces together will be how Massachusetts really stands out as a state that is doing something fully to prevent tobacco use and to help people who are addicted.”