"U.S. Senate Acts to Protect Kids, Save Lives by Increasing Federal Tobacco Taxes"

Statement of Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Senate today delivered a tremendous victory for children’s health by voting to increase federal tobacco taxes, including a 61-cent increase in the cigarette tax, to fund reauthorization and expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). This legislation will create a healthier future for millions of children both by reducing tobacco use – the number one cause of preventable death in America – and by expanding health care coverage for kids. We look forward to final enactment of this legislation by Congress and its signature into law by President Obama.

Increasing tobacco taxes is a proven strategy to reduce smoking and other tobacco use, especially among children. Studies show that every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by seven percent and overall cigarette consumption by about four percent. A 61-cent increase in the federal cigarette tax will prevent nearly two million kids from starting to smoke, help more than one million adult smokers quit, prevent nearly 900,000 smoking-caused deaths and produce $44 billion in long-term health care savings by reducing tobacco-caused health care costs.

To maximize the health benefits from the tobacco tax increase, we urge the Congress to adopt the Senate bill’s approach to taxing so-called "little cigars," which are the same size as cigarettes but have a brown wrapper. The Senate bill would immediately increase the tax on little cigars to $1 per pack, the same rate as for cigarettes, while the House bill would phase in the increase over six years. Allowing a disparity in tax rates would create an incentive for some cigarettes to continue to evade taxes by masquerading as little cigars and make these products more appealing to kids because of the lower prices.

Higher tobacco taxes are a win-win-win solution for the country – a health win that will reduce tobacco use and save lives, a financial win that will raise revenue to help fund the SCHIP program and reduce tobacco-caused health care costs, and a political win that is popular with voters. Polling conducted for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids found that more than two-thirds of all voters support a significant increase in the federal cigarette tax to provide health care coverage to uninsured children. This support is evident among virtually every political and demographic subgroup of voters across the country, with large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents, men and women, and urban and rural voters supporting the cigarette tax to fund children’s health care.

Tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people in the United States and costs the nation more than $96 billion in health care bills each year. Currently, 20 percent of high school students smoke and more than 1,000 kids become new regular smokers every day.

We urge Congress to finalize this important legislation without delay. It will expand health care coverage for America’s children while helping to reduce tobacco use and save lives.

More information:

Fact sheet: Benefits from a 61-cent federal cigarette tax increase: www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0314.pdf

Other fact sheets on federal tobacco taxes:
www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/index.php?CategoryID=11

New Legislation to be Introduced to Combat Drunk Driving

Madison, WI – Recognizing that solving the problem of drunk driving in Wisconsin is going to take a multifaceted, commonsense legislative approach, Senators Jim Sullivan (D-Wauwatosa), Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee), and John Lehman (D-Racine) today announced a comprehensive proposal that targets drunk drivers on numerous fronts in order to protect Wisconsin citizens.

"Drinking and driving is a crime that causes damage and destroys lives, and it’s a problem that won’t go away without an aggressive legislative intervention," said Sullivan.

"For the sake of your safety, we must pass tougher sanctions for repeat drunk drivers, expand treatment options, and increase the use of ignition interlock devices before any more lives are lost." Under the proposal, thousands of repeat offenders would be in jail or prison instead of behind the wheel.

The legislation promotes prevention and includes statewide expansion of the successful Winnebago County "Safe Streets" pilot program, which directs some offenders into alcohol treatment programs. The proposal also expands the use of Ignition Interlock Devices (IID), one of the tools that government has to prevent drunk drivers from getting behind the wheel."Far too many repeat drunk drivers are getting behind the wheel and endangering Wisconsin lives. This bill targets these repeat drunk drivers by making most third offenses and all fourth offenses felonies and by improving the IID program in our state," said Plale.

"It also gives our justice system new and improved tools to protect Wisconsin families." "There is broad agreement on the importance of revisiting our laws on drinking and driving. This bill takes a comprehensive approach to meet our shared goal of making Wisconsin roadways safer and provides a good means to enact needed changes," said Lehman.

The proposed legislation would:

• Make the third OWI offense within five years a felony
• Make all fourth OWI offenses a felony
• Close the 1st offense 08 fine loophole
• Expand Winnebago County’s successful "Safe Street" pilot program
• Require the Judicial Council to develop statewide sentencing guidelines for OWI offenses
• Mandate Ignition Interlock Devices (IIDs) or immobilization if second OWI offense is .16 or above and for all third offenses
• Prohibit IID contractors from cancelling an IID contract without an order from the court and provides penalties

Last session, Senator Sullivan successfully passed legislation that provided incremental penalties for drunk drivers. This package further strengthens the tools and options available to Wisconsin’s law enforcement and court systems.

Winnebago County Illegal Tobacco Sales More Than Double Over Last Year
More must be done to ensure continued funding to reduce sales to minors.

Winnebago County- The Winnebago County Tobacco Free Coalition, in partnership with the Wisconsin Wins (WI WINS) program, completed their 2008 tobacco compliance checks on local tobacco retailers with some discouraging results. In 2008, Winnebago County’s non-compliance rate of illegal sales to minors rose drastically to nearly 23% (62 sales of 271 completed checks). In 2007, the non-compliance rate for Winnebago County was around 10%. This news comes on the heels of the State struggling with possibly having to cut some grant funded programs, including the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program to meet the current biennial budget deficit.
The WI Wins tobacco compliance check program is funded through the WI Department of Health Services. Grant dollars are then distributed to local tobacco coalitions to help prevent youth from using tobacco. One way to reduce access to tobacco is by making tobacco products difficult to get and when it’s hard to get, they use less. Compliance checks are a proven method used to make sure retailers are not selling tobacco products to minors. However, if funding for the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program gets cut, important programs like these will suffer.
In 2005, Winnebago County had one of the highest non-compliance rates in the state with a staggering 28% (91 of 327 establishments) selling tobacco to minors. Winnebago County Tobacco Free Coalition Coordinator and Health Educator, Emily Dieringer states, "We’ve seen significant progress in just a few years, thanks in part to having the resources available and partnerships with local law enforcement to get the word out about not selling tobacco to minors." All seven Winnebago County Law enforcement agencies issue citations to clerks or license holders who sell tobacco to minors. (Citations rates range from $109 up to $298.) "But I’m afraid if program funding gets cut, we won’t have the resources available to reduce that non-compliance rate that rose so sharply this year, which means, it will be easier for kids to get tobacco products in Winnebago County."
On average, Wisconsin has seen a steady decline in non-compliance rates since the program’s inception in 2001. The CDC recommends a comprehensive tobacco control program that combines vigorous enforcement, political support from the State government, and a climate of active social norms that discourage youth tobacco use (http://prevention.samhsa.gov/tobacco/). States that have the lowest non-compliance rates of illegal tobacco sales to minors, like Wisconsin, also have a comprehensive tobacco control program. "If funding of the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program is cut, increased sales to minors and more youths using tobacco is a real possibility," Dieringer adds.

Deadly in Pink

On the heels of RJR’s successful Camel No. 9 launch last year, Philip Morris has just introduced new packaging for its iconic brand, Virginia Slims. These "purse packs" are like no other packs on the U.S. market. They are shaped like cosmetics boxes and hold "super slim" cigarettes that are very small in diameter -- there are 20 cigarettes in a pack that is half the width of a regular pack. And of course the new purse packs come in new colors: pink and teal. (Sound familiar?) The hip packaging and tiny cigarettes make it clear at whom this product is aimed: young women and girls.

Philip Morris plans to launch these repackaged Virginia Slims with a major marketing campaign by the first quarter of 2009 and these new "purse packs" are already on sale in many markets. You can probably find them in your community. We can expect to see heavy promotion at point-of-sale and in other ways, including events.

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby: Six years after the introduction of Virginia Slims in 1968, the smoking initiation rate for 12 year old girls had increased 110%. Now, in large part to that kind of targeted marketing, 155,000 women in the U.S. die every year from diseases caused by smoking and those diseases result in $34.7 billion in annual health care costs. Data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that women are more likely than men to die from COPD, in spite of having lower smoking and overall death rates. Lung cancer is the only form of cancer among women that is on the rise and it is the leading cancer killer of women, "outkilling" breast and all genital cancers, combined. Smoking causes heart disease – the # 1 killer of women, many forms of cancer, respiratory illnesses such as emphysema, low birth weight, reduced fertility, early menopause, osteoporosis and the list goes on.

Find Your Voice: The Camel No. 9 marketing unleashed a furor of activities against the extensive and lavish marketing of that brand. We need to harness that energy and strike back again to counter Philip Morris’ blatant attempt to addict a new generation of women.

Here are some things that you can do to end this appalling marketing ploy:

• Find out it the purse packs are available in your community and document the point of sale marketing (likely to start late this year and early next year) by taking pictures and/or noting where and when the marketing is taking place. It is powerful to show how pervasive the marketing is when educating the public and policy makers.
  
• Use your documentation when you do outreach in your community or state to the public, media and policy makers. You can also use it to recruit new partners, particularly groups that work with women and girls, to tobacco control.


• Actively support measures that are proven to reduce youth smoking rates, such as increased excise taxes. The more cigarettes cost, the less likely young people are to use them.


• Actively support passage of legislation to give FDA the authority to regulate tobacco. At a minimum, this would eliminate the use of the "light" descriptor, reduce any point-of-sale marketing to black and white, and cover 30% of the pack with a large warning label, marring the sleek look designed to lure young women.

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids would love to see your documentation of the marketing – it will help us make the case in Washington that the tobacco industry must be reined in. Please send your documentation to Victoria Almquist at valmquist@tobaccofreekids.org.

Oshkosh Northwestern Editor Supports Statewide Smoke-Free Air

On November 13, the Oshkosh Northwestern printed an article about business-owners worries about a statewide smoke-free air law that could be passes in 2009. Alex Hummel, editor for the Northwestern, also commented on the issue on November 13:

TIME FOR STATE TO LEGISLATE SMOKING BAN
"Plain and simple, the time has come to enact an indoor smoking ban in Wisconsin. It's a public health matter that, left to individual communities to legislate, has created a counterproductive patchwork of bans around the state. Here, things have gotten tacky. The Fox Valley has become the model argument for a statewide ban, with Oshkosh, like Wisconsin, now the odd one out among the region's larger communities.

In 2004, Oshkosh voters endorsed a restaurant smoking ban: No smoking in places where food isthe dominant revenue generator. That was followed by Appleton's 2005 decision to ban smoking in all businesses, a citywide indoor ban including taverns. Last month, the city of Fond du Lac enacted its own citywide indoor smoking ban. So, the first to approve legislation in the region now has the least-stringent version on the books. Smoking law, in the north-to-south span of Lake Winnebago, is a hodge-podge of policy and rules.

Not only is a statewide ban politically inevitable, it is increasingly accepted by everyday residents. In early 2007, a statewide poll conducted by a team of firms found 64 percent of respondents to a random phone survey in favor of a statewide indoor smoking ban; 34 percent opposed it. In April, another poll found 69 percent support statewide. But let's not let facts get in the way.

Furthermore, Wisconsin is its own island, surrounded by Illinois' and Minnesota's statewide indoor smoking bans. Attempts to propose and approve a statewide ban here in the last year or two haven't cleared final hurdles, given our split legislature. But, now, with Democratic control of both houses of our state legislature, odds are a statewide smoking ban has a clear shot to passage.

So, let's get it done, take a healthy step forward and confront on the rest of the problems that confront Wisconsin. A prolonged debate on the inevitable is guaranteed to distract Wisconsin from what is now feared to be a $5 billion deficit and long-neglected reforms within education, corrections and general government.

Ultimately, Wisconsin would ban smoking indoors, not tobacco products, not smoking altogether. Lighting up outdoors, in your car or in your home will continue to be your call and, unfortunately, our collective burden."

Thank you Mr. Hummel for supporting this important health issue and taking a public stand!
If you'd like to thank Alex, his email is: ahummel@thenorthwestern.com