Nobody blows smoke in the face of voters better than the tobacco industry.
These are the folks who market deadly products to kids in order to turn a buck. They’re at it again with a supremely sleazy advertising campaign designed to kill Proposition 56, which would raise the cigarette tax in California by $2 a pack to $2.87 a pack, which would be more than the national average of $1.63 a pack, but far less than New York’s $4.35 a pack.
The ads are insidious. They tug at parents’ heartstrings, claiming the proposition takes money away from schools — a flat-out lie — and gives it to greedy insurance companies. In fact it goes to pay doctors to treat poor people who are newly-insured under Covered California.
Without adequate pay, doctors can’t afford to treat large numbers of these patients who need preventive care, which saves huge amounts of public money, or treatment of serious illnesses, many causde by smoking or secondary smoke.
Remember, smoking kills 40,000 Californians every year. It’s the state’s No. 1 cause of preventable death. Prop. 56 will save thousands of lives, substantially reduce the state’s health care costs and increase its atrociously low reimbursement rates for doctors who treat poor patients.
But the tobacco industry’s despicable campaign is working. Bankrolled mainly by R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris, the No on Prop. 56 campaign has spent more than $50 million to blanket the airwaves with scurrilous ads.
Support for the tobacco tax — initially strong — dropped to 53 percent in a recent Field poll.
The most craven ad stars Long Beach high school math teacher Davina Keiser. She says she is “astounded” to learn that not one penny of the measure goes to improving California schools. She calls it “bad math.”
If this is the kind of analytical skill our kids are learning in math class, no wonder they’re behind the curve.
Prop. 56 does not take a single dollar from schools. The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office says it will raise $20 million a year for public schools to enhance their smoking cessation programs.
The tobacco industry hangs its claim on the fact that Prop. 56 revenue will not be counted toward Prop. 98, the 1988 ballot measure that guaranteed a set percentage of state revenue for schools. But many propositions have had the same exemption so that all their revenue can go to the specific cause voters are deciding on. A recent measure for mental health care is one example.
Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent of schools, supports Prop. 56. So does the California PTA . They know smoking harms children, and kids who come to school sick fall behind. Newly-insured low-income families need doctors to care for them, and that’s what Prop. 56 is for.
The ads also claim too little funding from the tax will go to anti-smoking programs. (Oh, the irony.) But Prop. 56 triples funding for the state’s anti-smoking program.
Taxpayers now spend $3 billion a year on tobacco-related medical care, much of it for smokers. Regular preventive care could help them quit or at least take other steps to control chronic diseases brought on by the habit.
Increasing tobacco taxes has proven again and again to be the most effective way to reduce smoking. This is why so many states have been far more progressive than California on this.
Don’t let the tobacco industry that kills so many Americans kill Prop 56. Think for yourself. Vote yes on this life-saving measure.
