Alaska is making the best use of cigarette taxes and Big Tobacco settlement money distributed to states in the decade after authorities negotiated a deal with the companies over smoking-related health costs incurred by the states, according to a new report released today by a coalition of advocacy groups. South Carolina ranks the worst.
States have received $203.5 billion in tobacco revenue since the Master Settlement Agreement between states’ attorneys general and cigarette makers in 1998. The agreement required the companies to reimburse states for the money they spent treating smoking-related illnesses. It didn’t stipulate how states should spend the funds, but many attorneys general and public health officials said they’d use it and revenue from cigarette taxes to discourage children from smoking. But just over 3 percent of that money – about $65 billion – has been spent on tobacco prevention and treatment programs, according to the report.
Emphasis mine.
Yup. I called this 10 years ago when they reached the settlement. Very little of that money would actually be used to help curb smoking; rather it would simply be another windfall to the local tyrants. And of course, I was right:
Most of the money has been spent plugging budget holes, says Joel Spivak, a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, one of the groups that worked on the report.
Yeah. Remember how we were subject to endless commercials about the perils of smoking; about how the costs associated with the treatment of smokers' illnesses was putting a drain on health care, yadda yadda yadda? Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Folks, the tobacco settlement was nothing more than a shakedown, a naked, raw grab by the FedGov to take money from a legal business by threat of force.
And Barack Obama is tapping the administration who made this all possible for all levels of Cabinet and administration picks.
BOHICA. Hopenchange my hairy Italian ass.
That is a
5 comments:
Jay, can we stop talking about your hairy Italian ass for a bit?
I mean, this is MArooned, not the Farmer's Almanac. And besides, isn't importing a donkey from Italy a bit expensive? Wouldn't a domestic ass has done as well?
The whole issue about the tobacco suits was money and punishing an unpopular business.
God forbid we tell people who do things which harm themselves to buck up and take responsibility.
I'm a smoker. I started the nasty, highly addictive drug at 12 and still haven't been able to quit 33 years later.It's probably gonna kill me.
But I'm not going to cry that it was somebody else's fault. It's my fault I started, and if anyone shares blame it's parent's who didn't kick my ass at the time.
But bottom line, I've been on my own since age 15. No one has held a gun to my head and made me light up.
The anti-tobacco crusade is no less disgusting than the anti-drug fanaticism that grips the country, and every bit as destructive as Carrie Nation with her axe.
In Nevada, the money went towards subsidizing college education via the Millennium Scholarship. I was only 13 when the program started, but even then I remember thinking why the hell they didn't use the money for treating cancer patients. I mean, that was the freaking reason they sued, right?
100% Shakedown. I've been quit for 6+ years now. I knew what I was getting myself into when I had every one of those cancer sticks. When the cough showed up and the shortness of breath I knew where it was coming from, and I knew when I threw my "last pack" (I often used the great quote: "Quitting Smoking is EASY! I do it ALL THE TIME!" so there were a few "last packs") in the trash I knew I was in for a nasty battle.
How anybody can think they can suck in lungfuls of smoke for years on end, and think they'll get away with it is beyond me.
I suspect such people don't exist except when they see dollar signs attached to it.
Something is wrong here. $65 billion is about 30% of $203 billion, not 3%. So did the writer of the SciAmer article miss a decimal point or is 30% being spent on anti-smoking? I would guess $6.5B is accurate, as most of us would have noticed over $1 billion being spent in each and every state.
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