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State ranks 28th in smoking prevention

Connecticut ranks 28th in the nation when it comes to funding programs that prevent youths from smoking and help smokers quit the habit, according to a national report released Wednesday.

Titled “A Broken Promise to Our Children: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 11 Years Later,” the report’s findings were issued by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Connecticut, 45 states and the District of Columbia receive money annually as part of a November 1998 settlement to a lawsuit against tobacco companies. Four others received money from individual settlements prior to that date. The report sponsors issue annual assessments on how states use settlement funds, excise taxes on tobacco products and use grants from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We spend too much on treating people after they get sick and too little on keeping them healthy in the first place,” Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and chief executive officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said in a statement.

Connecticut is expected to collect $494 million from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes this year, but will spend just 1.5 percent of it on tobacco prevention programs, compared to the $123 million tobacco companies will spend marketing their products here, researchers said.

“To continue reducing tobacco’s devastating toll, it is critical that Connecticut’s leaders increase funding for tobacco prevention,” said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Adam Liegeot, a spokesman for Gov. M. Jodi Rell, said Connecticut scores well in smoking policy surveys for its excise tax on cigarettes, which is $3 per pack, and the state’s ban on smoking in public places.

The state Tobacco and Health Trust Fund board of trustees is recommending $6.4 million in disbursements during fiscal 2010, which ends June 30, to be spent on activities such as counter-marketing, community cessation services, the QuitLine telephone cessation service, school prevention programs and lung cancer and genetic research.

The purpose of the lawsuit was to reimburse states for their share of costs associated with smoking-related illnesses, principally Medicaid, Liegeot said.

“We have spent millions of dollars per year for many years and have made significant progress in reducing smoking in this state. We will continue to make reasonable and appropriate efforts to continue that progress,” he said.