It seems like the largest tobacco-producing state in the nation is playing a sick joke on its health advocates, taxpayers and those with smoking-relating diseases.
Reports suggest North Carolina has used $43 million of the $59 million it has spent so far from the national tobacco settlements to produce and market tobacco — all while the state has yet to spend a penny on prevention.
Tobacco has long had a death-grip on North Carolina’s economy, and in the present economic climate things are getting worse for poor farmers in marginalized areas of the state. But only a small amount of the settlement money has been spent on alternative crops and development projects in tobacco communities that would give these farmers a way out of their dependency on the crop. Two of the three trust funds created by North Carolina lawmakers to oversee the distribution of tobacco settlement money finance the construction of a tobacco farm life museum, a $1.3 million tobacco marketing center, and a campaign to build a tobacco processing plant in one of its counties. Much of the remaining money is being used by the state legislature to ease severe budget shortfalls. Meanwhile, more than 13,000 men, women and children in North Carolina die each year from smoking and second-hand smoke, compared to about 8,000 in Washington.
The damage caused by tobacco use is well-known, and thanks to successful programs and advertising campaigns in many states across America, more and more Americans are starting to quit. With the tobacco settlement money, states like California and Massachusetts have dramatically cut smoking and tobacco-related disease rates. Florida’s three-year tobacco prevention campaign cut high school smoking by 47 percent. Washington, which has received significantly less money than North Carolina in settlement payments, spends $17.5 million a year in tobacco prevention, ranking our state 18th in meeting the Center for Disease Control’s minimum recommendation for funding.
The fact that North Carolina has spent nothing so far to prevent its citizens from using tobacco is not only embarrassing, it is a waste of taxpayer money and a violation of its commitment to improve the quality of life of its citizens.
Washington has done good work, but we still only spend 53 percent of the minimum amount for tobacco prevention suggested by the CDC. Unless smokers across the country give up their dependency on tobacco, North Carolina’s tobacco farmers will be powerless to do the same.
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