Rendez-vous 128
Monday, February 11 2002
Thank you Terry for accepting our rendez-vous. May I ask you to introduce yourself ?
Terry Reid: Hello, my name is Terry Reid, and I'm the Manager of the Washington State Department of Health's Tobacco Prevention and Control Program. The program is new for Washington, just under two years old, and is funded by a portion of the money the state received from settling a lawsuit against the major tobacco companies. I have worked in public health with state and local government for more than 20 years. My interest in tobacco issues stems from my background in substance abuse treatment and prevention. I also enjoy being in a position where the action is.
Q1. Recently several states have been reducing their funding for tobacco control. What is the situation now in Washington State? And for the next budget?
Terry Reid: Washington has increased steadily its funding for tobacco prevention and control. Our first year budget was $15 million, and that has increased this year, our second year, to $17.5 million. Thanks to the citizens who passed Initiative 773 in November, it looks like our budget will be raised to $26.2 million dollars per year, starting in July 2002. Of course, our state Legislature makes all final budget decisions, so we won't be certain about our funding after the legislative session, which is scheduled to end March 15. We do get some money from other sources than the Legislature. We receive some additional funding from grants from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from fees paid by tobacco retailers, and $900,000 in a grant from the American Legacy Foundation for youth empowerment activities.
Q2. What are the main components of your state tobacco control strategy? How much goes to each part (cessation, media campaign, youth, community, evaluation, else)?
Terry Reid: The main components of our program are the ones you listed plus funding for school programs. They are the components the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists as essential for an effective, comprehensive approach to tobacco prevention and control. Currently, a bit more than a third of our budget goes to our media campaign and public education, a bit more than a third goes directly to schools and communities, and the rest goes to cessation, evaluation, and administration.
Q3. How many people staff the program? Can you explain their respective tasks?
Terry Reid: We have 14 staff. Four manage contracts with communities and schools. Each of them has an additional area of responsibility such as reducing tobacco sales to minors, working with minority communities, or increasing youth participation in anti-tobacco activities. There are two staff who manage the $11 million public education and marketing campaign. Two staff handle all the issues dealing with helping people quit using tobacco, three staff deal exclusively with surveys and evaluating our progress, and the remainder handle administrative functions.
Q4. Can you give us some precisions about your cessation initiatives? Does the quitline attract many calls? How can you evaluate its impact? Do you subsidize the use of nrts?
Terry Reid: We help people quit using tobacco in a number of ways. We work with health insurance providers to encourage them to add counseling and possibly patches, gum, or Zyban to their coverage. We are training health care providers who work with low-income pregnant women to provide counseling to those of their clients who smoke. We support local programs to help people quit. And we offer free telephone quit line service. The quit line has been heavily used. In its first year, through November 2001, the Quit Line provided services to more than 13,000 callers. When people call the quit line they can receive a Quit Kit in the mail, receive a referral to a local program to help them quit, receive one-on-one counseling over the telephone or be enrolled in the Free and Clear program. The Free and Clear program provides follow up telephone counseling and in some cases free nicotine replacement therapy such as nicotine patches or gum. Nicotine replacement therapy is available only to those who have no medical insurance or are covered by Medicaid. People love the quit line. Our satisfaction survey of quit line users showed 72 percent of callers believed the quit line had been helpful in their effort to quit.
Q5. Some people seem to fear a big increase in smuggling when the new tax will kick in since the neighboring states have significantly lower taxes/prices and Seattle is a big harbor. What is your assessment?
Terry Reid: According to the news reports I have seen, cigarette sales in Idaho near the Washington border have been brisk since the tax increase took effect on January 1, but I don't have any solid information about the effect the tax will have on cigarette sales. That is a question that could better be answered by our state's Liquor Control Board. They're the ones that collect the tax and enforce the tobacco sales laws.
Q6. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Terry Reid: There are a couple of things I would like to add. First: We recently launched a new media campaign featuring television, radio, transit, billboard, mall kiosk, web, and video rental store ads made for our state. Our original campaign featured ads from other states. For instance, we used California's Debi ads, which showed a woman smoking out of a hole in her throat. The new ads are designed to discourage smoking among young people. During our research kids told us they wanted fact-based ads that have a bit of a gross-out factor, so that is the approach we took. For example, one of the television ads states, "Smoking makes you look older - a lot older." The camera then follows the smoke over the lips and past the teeth, down the throat, and into the lungs of the smoker showing the damage smoking is doing at each step of the way. Each body part rapidly ages or deteriorates before the viewers' eyes. We are trying to counter the idea that smoking is cool with graphic images that demonstrate what is uncool about smoking. We also run ads that promote our Quit Line. Those ads were created for other states.
Second: I want to acknowledge the work that dedicated people throughout our state have been doing to help reduce tobacco use. We have a lot of partners in schools, the health community, local government, non-profits and elsewhere and we rely on them in everything we do at the state level. We want to do everything we can to build on what they have done, support their efforts and add value by doing the things that can be done most effectively at the state level. It's an exciting time for tobacco prevention and control in Washington and we can all look forward to making some real progress in the next few years.
Thank you Terry for taking the time to be with us today.
Rendez-vous is supported by a contract from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Comments