© 2004 by Oxford University Press
© 2004 Oxford University Press
NEWS |
Tobacco Settlement Seen as Opportunity Lost To Curb Cigarette Use
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Tobacco settlement dollars are increasingly being used by states to shore up eroding budgets instead of for the purposes they were intended—to offset tobacco-related health care costs and institute tobacco control programs.
Congress’s investigative body, the General Accounting Office (GAO), reported in March that the 46 states party to the 1998 $206 billion Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) spent just 24% of fiscal 2003’s earnings on health programs, and the states are expected to devote even less—17%—to such programs this year.
Instead, states last year spent 36% of the $12.8 billion they collected to offset their budgets, and this year the GAO estimates that 54% of the $11.4 billion to be received will be used to address budget shortfalls.
The federal report followed closely on the heels of the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Surgeon General’s report that condemned smoking and launched a war against tobacco use, an event that has
Grim Numbers
No Restrictions on Windfall
Some Gains