Budget Cuts Anti-Smoking Programs

It's Amanda Cady's job to combat smoking Doina cigarettes online in Oneida, Herkimer and Madison counties. But state budget cuts are making that job harder. As Advocacy in Action coordinator for the state-dependent Tri-County Tobacco Cessation Center located at Faxton St.Luke's Healthcare in Utica, Cady helps area healthcare providers and employers with anti-tobacco strategies. Budget cuts, however, have limited how much help she can give. For example, she can no longer give doctors free nicotine replacement therapy for their patients, and a college program disappeared statewide in June, she said. “We could be making so much of a greater impact,” Cady said. That's the reality of a state budget that slashed spending on tobacco control in half between fiscal year 2007 and the current fiscal year - from $85.5 million to $41.4 million, according to the report “Up in Smoke” by the American Cancer Society. The report was released recently with endorsements from the cancer society, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association in New York, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the League of Women Voters/NYS and the New York Public Interest Research Group. The report criticizes the state for spending less than 4 percent of the estimated $2.1 billion revenues it will receive this year from tobacco on programs to help smokers quit and to prevent smoking through public education. The revenues come from tobacco taxes ($1.7 billion) and a Master Settlement Agreement with tobacco companies (an estimated $355 million). Smokers generate most of this revenue, said one of the study's authors, Russ Sciandra, the cancer society's New York state director for advocacy. “The state is very happy to take this money, but it's very stingy when it comes to helping people quit, saving their lives and, by the way, saving their money when they quit.” But the state doesn't see it that way. “Despite the fact that we took steps to close a $10 billion budget deficit without raising taxes, New York still spends more on our anti-smoking programs than most other states,” said Morris Peters, spokesman for the state division of budget. Cady, though, fears that the state's efforts won't be enough. “We've made so much progress in New York state, decreasing the smoking rates for adults and youth,” Cady said. “We don't want to see that reversed.” But data shows that when other states have cut tobacco control funding, smoking rates have gone back up, she said. At 25.1 percent and 25.4 percent, Oneida and Madison counties already have smoking rates considerably higher than the state average of 17 percent, due to several factors, including demographics and the availability of cheap, tax-free Indian-made cigarettes on the Oneida Indian Nation reservation. New York has the country's highest cigarette excise tax at $4.35 a pack. High cigarette taxes have been proven to reduce smoking rates. Based on strategies that have worked in other states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has suggested that New York should spend between $155.1 million and $339.4 million a year to see the greatest possible drop in smoking rates through programs such as the smokers' quitline, media campaigns and surveys to track progress.