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Ohio Department of Health Can and Should Continue its Life-Saving Statewide Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Programs

6/11/2008

Statement by the American Legacy Foundation

Washington, D.C. – Last week the Ohio Department of Health (DOH) notified the organizations that had been receiving grants from the now-eliminated Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation (OTPF) that effective June 30, their funding will cease. As a direct result, vital tobacco control programs statewide will come to a grinding halt, ending life-saving services to thousands of Ohioans and leaving hundreds of employees jobless. The state has blamed the litigation brought by OTPF, in which the American Legacy Foundation has intervened, as the reason for taking this drastic and unnecessary step.

While the court has imposed a freeze on the OTPF’s funds, the court has also made it clear that the state can seek permission to spend funds to honor OTPF’s commitments. Indeed, the court has previously granted OTPF’s requests for authority to spend over $5 million to pay for outstanding charges and invoices, including over $100,000 to its investment managers.

On Monday, June 9, 2008, as soon as we learned of the state’s notifications, the American Legacy Foundation contacted the DOH to inform them that we are ready and willing to discuss a plan to present to the court to honor the state’s tobacco control commitments until a decision is made in the case. The parties used exactly this process to continue tobacco control programs earlier in the case. The court previously granted, with Legacy’s support, OTPF’s requests for authority to spend nearly $5 million to pay for outstanding charges and invoices as well as a six-figure payout requested by Ohio’s Treasurer to compensate its investment fund managers. While DOH has not yet responded to Legacy’s proposal, we remain hopeful that they will join our efforts to keep these life-saving programs in place during the remainder of the litigation.

Research shows that when effective tobacco control efforts are gutted, both youth and adult smoking rates are certain to rebound. Shutting down the local OTPF grant-funded programs that engage youth in tobacco prevention efforts and provide direct cessation services for adults will very likely have drastic public health consequences. Right now, according to the CDC, Ohio’s adult smoking rate is above the national average, an estimated 390,000 Ohioans live with tobacco-related illnesses and 18,000 Ohioans lose their lives each year to smoking related disease.

Consider in addition that smoking costs Ohio over $4 billion in annual health care costs and another $4.7 billion) annually in smoking-related productivity loss (in 2004 dollars). A 2007 report by the American Legacy Foundation found that Ohio’s Medicaid system could save nearly $550 million (in 2005 dollars) within five years if all Medicaid beneficiaries who smoke, quit. Ohio would reap the third largest savings of all the states, making the case that during this economic downturn in Ohio, these funds would in fact be a wiser long-term investment, if they remained focused on tobacco control and ultimately saving Ohioans’ lives and money.

While Legacy did not ask for these funds, we are proud to fight to secure them in order to continue doing life saving work in the state. We are acutely aware of the price that Ohioans will pay if the state succeeds in diverting these funds from tobacco control. If we succeed in our legal claim, we pledge to use these funds for the benefit of Ohio and fully expect that we would create an Ohio office for this purpose.

The American Legacy Foundation^® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco, through grants, technical assistance and training, partnerships, youth activism, and counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns. The foundation’s programs include truth^®, a national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as contributing to significant declines in youth smoking; EX^®, an innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use; and a nationally-renowned program of outreach to priority populations. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Visit http://www.americanlegacy.org/.

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Contact: Julia Cartwright, 202-454-5596, jcartwright@americanlegacy.org