Rendez-vous 123
Thursday December 27 2001
Thank you Astrid for accepting our rendez-vous. May I ask you to introduce yourself ?
I am the Executive Director for the American Lung Association of Washington, and have held this position for 12 years. One of the Lung Association's primary goals in assuring lung health for the people of Washington is reducing tobacco use. Our emphasis is on reducing smoking initiation among kids. The Association's long-standing mission is what led me to involvement in tobacco control.
Q1. Who came up with the idea of initiative I 773 that raised the tobacco tax in Washington? How did it start? How was the coalition organized? Was there a lead agency? Were people hired especially? What was the budget?
Astrid Berg: Increasing the price of tobacco is a well-documented strategy for reducing tobacco use and has been shown to be especially effective in discouraging kids from starting to smoke. The initiative process for increasing the tax was chosen because our polling has consistently shown that voters are in favor of reducing smoking and not adverse to increasing the price of tobacco. Legislators have demonstrated reluctance to increase taxes of any kind, so the initiative to the people was seen to be the most efficient strategy to accomplish the tax increase. The coalition consists of several agencies (American Lung Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Group Health, Children's Alliance and others) who have long-time experience in working together in tobacco control. The Economic Opportunity Institute's interest in providing increased access to the State's Basic Health Plan brought them to this endeavor, and you can see the long list of participants and supporters on the I773 website. We hired a campaign manager and others to run the campaign. The budget was $1.75 million, including about $500,000 in in-kind and independent expenditures.
Q2. There was very little opposition from the industry. Why? Could it be that the plan is to defeat the initiative after it passes, via a gigantic increase in smuggling (as a few recent articles seem to imply)? A similar strategy was used in Canada: prices in neighboring states are significantly lower, there are numerous Indian reservations and a very active harbor...
Astrid Berg: I believe the industry did polling and learned that voters in Washington are very much inclined to protect kids from tobacco by voting for something like I 773. They are also aware of the their industry's low favorability rating with voters. I do not know what plans the industry may have to defeat the voters' intent as expressed by 66% of those who voted on the question.
Q3. In many states public funding for tobacco control remains very low, despite the monies derived from the settlement. Do you think the success of I 773 could incite tobacco control coalitions to take the initiative route (where it is available)? Have you been contacted by groups outside of Washington State that wanted to learn from your experience with I 773?
Astrid Berg: Yes, we have heard that there is increased interest in raising the tax on tobacco products now and we have been contacted by people from other states who are thinking about doing what we did here in Washington. The governor of New York, for example, has stated that he would like NY to beat Washington's tax.
Q4. What results do you expect from I 773? Do you think this experience will incite public health agencies to use again the initiative process? Did it have an impact on your relationship with the legislators?
Astrid Berg: The results of the vote are that 50,000 additional slots will be made available to people in Washington who qualify for the Basic Health Plan. Some additional money is also earmarked for tobacco prevention and control programs. I don't know that public health agencies would be incited to use the initiative process for other issues on the basis of this experience. Each issue is different, and the initiative process is time consuming and expensive. I think our relationship with legislators remains intact. This ballot measure was not one that required the legislature to produce results without providing a funding source. Rather, I 773 provided funding so that a serious issue (lack of access to health care) can be addressed, along with ensuring that the likelihood of kids starting to smoke will go down.
Q5. How do you assess now the situation of tobacco control in the state of Washington? Taxes are at the top. What about the other measures?
Astrid Berg: The price increase will help to reduce smoking, and especially initiation of smoking by kids. We still have many people addicted to tobacco in Washington state. $1.3 billion are spent annually in treating tobacco related diseases. 8,200 individuals die annually from tobacco related diseases. Many people are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke, also shown to be dangerous to health. We need to consider how kids can be protected from the addiction, how the general public, including all workers, can be protected from exposure to second-hand smoke, how people who smoke can be helped to quit.
Q6. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Astrid Berg: Thank you for addressing this issue. Tobacco use is the single largest preventable cause of death and disability in our country today, and your coverage of the many facets of tobacco control is very much appreciated. A "Campaign Review" of Initiative 773 is available from our office, should you like to look at the experience in more depth than I have been able to provide in this memo.
Thank you Astrid for taking the time to be with us today.
P.S: www.I773.org was not accessible when I tried.
According to the Initiative Resource Center, San Francisco quoted on http://www.vote.org/states.htm the following states have popular initiative laws (with varied extent) Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.
The Indiana ITPC website offers an updated table of the tobacco state excise taxes at http://www.ai.org/itpc/files/stateexcisetaxfactsheet.pdf
Rendez-vous is supported by a contract from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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