Skip to main content

Tobacco Prevention Program in Connecticut Broken

In its annual report on states' funding of tobacco prevention programs titled "A Broken Promise to Our Children,” the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Lung Association and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report that Connecticut ranks 45th in the nation in funding programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. Key findings in the report show:

• In the past year, Connecticut has virtually eliminated funding for tobacco prevention, cutting funding from $6.1 million to $400,000.

• Connecticut this year will collect $529 million from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend just 0.1 percent of it on tobacco prevention programs.

• The tobacco companies spend $123 million a year to market their products in Connecticut. This is 307 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention.

•In the past year, Connecticut has virtually eliminated funding for tobacco prevention, cutting funding from $6.1 million to $400,000.

• Connecticut this year will collect $529 million from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend just 0.1 percent of it on tobacco prevention programs.

• The tobacco companies spend $123 million a year to market their products in Connecticut. This is 307 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention.
The assault on Big Tobacco, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s signature suit, played an important part in his recent successful election to the U.S. Senate.

While the fines collected from Big Tobacco by Mr. Blumenthal and other attorneys general may have helped the Connecticut General Assembly to pad its budget with the windfall furnished by the attorneys general, the money collected, as shown by the report, has had virtually no practical effect in keeping the broken promise to our children.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Donna

I am writing this for members of my family, and for others who may be interested.   My twin sister Donna died a few hours ago of stage three lung cancer. The end came quickly and somewhat unexpectedly.   She was preceded in death by Lisa Pesci, my brother’s daughter, a woman of great courage who died still full of years, and my sister’s husband Craig Tobey Senior, who left her at a young age with a great gift: her accomplished son, Craig Tobey Jr.   My sister was a woman of great strength, persistence and humor. To the end, she loved life and those who loved her.   Her son Craig, a mere sapling when his father died, has grown up strong and straight. There is no crookedness in him. Thanks to Donna’s persistence and his own native talents, he graduated from Yale, taught school in Japan, there married Miyuki, a blessing from God. They moved to California – when that state, I may add, was yet full of opportunity – and both began to carve a living for them...
Post a Comment
Read more

The PURA soap opera continues in Connecticut: Business eyeing the exit signs

The trouble at PURA and the two energy companies it oversees began – ages ago, it now seems – with the elevation of Marissa Gillett to the chairpersonship of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulation Authority.   Connecticut Commentary has previously weighed in on the controversy: PURA Pulls The Plug on November 20, 2019; The High Cost of Energy, Three Strikes and You’re Out? on December 21, 2024; PURA Head Butts the Economic Marketplace on January 3, 2025; Lamont Surprised at Suit Brought Against PURA on February 3, 2025; and Lamont’s Pillow Talk on February 22, 2025:   The melodrama full of pratfalls continues to unfold awkwardly.   It should come as no surprise that Gillett has changed the nature and practice of the state agency. She has targeted two of Connecticut’s energy facilitators – Eversource and Avangrid -- as having in the past overcharged the state for services rendered. Thanks to the Democrat controlled General Assembly, Connecticut is no l...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Murphy Thingy

It’s the New York Post , and so there are pictures. One shows Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy canoodling with “Courier Newsroom publisher Tara McGowan, 39, last Monday by the bar at the Red Hen, located just one mile north of Capitol Hill.”   The canoodle occurred one day or night prior to Murphy’s well-advertised absence from President Donald Trump’s recent Joint Address to Congress.   Murphy has said attendance at what was essentially a “campaign rally” involving the whole U.S. Congress – though Democrat congresspersons signaled their displeasure at the event by stonily sitting on their hands during the applause lines – was inconsistent with his dignity as a significant part of the permanent opposition to Trump.   Reaching for his moral Glock Murphy recently told the Hartford Courant that Democrat Party opposition to President Donald Trump should be unrelenting and unforgiving: “I think people won’t trust you if you run a campaign saying that if Donald Trump is ...
Post a Comment
Read more