A Florida judge reduced an almost $300 million verdict against Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris USA unit to $38.9 million in a lawsuit brought by a former smoker who suffers from emphysema.
“The court found that the jury’s verdict was grossly excessive and unsupported by the evidence presented at trial,” the cigarette maker said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

A Fort Lauderdale jury last year awarded Cindy Naugle $56.6 million in compensatory damages and $244 million in punitive damages. The jury found Naugle was 10 percent responsible for her injuries and reduced the compensatory damages by that amount.

Naugle started smoking in 1968 when she was 20 years old. Bob Kelley, a lawyer for Naugle, said in a phone interview that he will appeal the judge’s decision.

Philip Morris also said it will appeal, saying that no damages were warranted.

The suit was one of about 4,000 filed after a 2006 Florida Supreme Court decision decertifying a statewide class action. The court allowed smokers to sue individually and extended the time for them to do so. The $300 million award was the largest tobacco verdict in Florida since the Supreme Court decision.

By Edvard Pettersson, Businessweek

About 200 South Mississippi teenagers will soon be on the front lines in the battle against Big Tobacco.

“Second hand smoke affects the development of a baby’s brain.”

“Smoking while you’re pregnant affects the development of the child.”

Those were just some of the messages they heard Tuesday during a LEAD Conference in Biloxi. LEAD stands for Leadership, Engagement, and Activism Development. The high school students learned how to lead the movement against smoking, especially among young people.

“This is basically a call to action. We want to disseminate the message among as many people as possible. And with us reaching this group, we certainly hope we can make a difference,” said Dena Pope, Youth Programs Coordinator for the Mississippi Department of Health Office of Tobacco Control.

The teens created eye-catching posters and bandanas, with words that inform people about the deadly effects of tobacco use. They also learned how small, inexpensive toys can be effective tools in spreading the message that tobacco kills.

One instructor held up baby doll with a piece of paper attached.

“I put a fact on there, representing how second hand smoke affects children,” he explained.

According to the Mississippi Health Department, 20-percent of Mississippi youth are smokers. And 69,000 high school students in our state will eventually die from smoking.

Some of the teens at the conference know first-hand about the dangers of smoking. Jennifer Ladner of Ocean Springs High School lost her grandfather to a smoking-related illness.

“The tobacco industry is really targeting youth. They’re really using us as targets, as replacement smokers as they call us,” said Ladner. “We really need to step up and for our generation to speak and get the word out there that tobacco is not a good thing.”

Jennifer helped push for a no-smoking ordinance in parks around Ocean Springs. She wants to inspire other teens to join her and become an anti-smoking activist.

“They can stand up for anything they believe in and they can make an impact as youth,” said Ladner.

The LEAD Conference was part of the Mississippi Health Department’s Generation Free Program. Members will make other stops this week in Jackson, Greenville and Tupelo.

By Trang Pham-Bui, Wlox

The U.S. Department of Defense, caught off guard by the swift spread of the H1N1 flu virus last year and delays in producing a vaccine, is backing an unusual plan to use tobacco plants to make the vaccine.

Flu vaccines are typically grown in chicken eggs. Although the technique is slow and expensive, vaccine makers have done little to improve on this reliable method for more than 60 years. The urgent need for a better way became apparent last year.

“The response to H1N1 was a disaster,” said Brett Giroir, vice chancellor for research at Texas A&M University System, part of a consortium testing plant-based vaccines for H1N1, or swine flu.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—which conducts research to protect soldiers from infectious diseases, and also is concerned about the U.S. capability to react swiftly to a bioterrorist attack, among other things—has awarded the consortium $40 million to make an initial 10 million doses of H1N1 vaccine.

Texas A&M and closely held firm G-Con will together invest a further $21 million. Details of the project, known as GreenVax, will be announced Wednesday.

For several years, vaccine companies have worked on harvesting vaccines in everything from caterpillar cells to cocker-spaniel kidney cells. Plants have certain advantages over animal parts, which may contain pathogens harmful to humans. The tobacco plant is particularly promising: It has been extensively researched, is cheap to grow and can yield large amounts of vaccine quickly—potentially reducing production time to weeks instead of several months.

Earlier this month, Arizona State University researchers showed a plant-based drug could prevent and treat West Nile virus infection in mice. In January, Germany’s Bayer AG said it was testing a plant-based vaccine for non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

In December, Medicago Inc. of Quebec City reported positive results for a tobacco-based vaccine for avian flu, or H5N1, which has killed more than 250 people world-wide. Biotechnology firm VAXX Inc. of Tucson, Ariz., says it soon plans to start a human trial of a tobacco-based vaccine for Norwalk norovirus—or “cruise ship virus”—which causes gastroenteritis in as many as 74 million Americans annually.

GreenVax is one of the more ambitious of the plant-based vaccine projects. It is partly based on research done at Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology, in a partnership with the biotech firm iBio Inc., both based in Newark, Del.

As a first step, researchers at Fraunhofer isolated a protein from the H1N1 virus known to trigger a protective immune response in a patient without causing an infection. A gene for this protein was then introduced into a bacterium. Tobacco plants were placed in a special chamber and dipped into a soup of the bacteria, which caused the plants to get infected with the gene-carrying bacteria.

The infected plants then began to produce the protein from H1N1 in large quantities. The plants grew for about a week. Their leaves were then chopped up and crushed, and the protein from H1N1—the essence of the vaccine—was extracted from the slurry and purified.

Initial tests on ferrets, which can catch human flu, showed the vaccine was safe and effective. “The good news is that this vast amount of human protein isn’t toxic to the plant,” so it can keep producing large amounts of the vaccine’s raw material, said Barry Holtz, president of G-Con. And the plants don’t become “transgenic”—their seeds, for example, aren’t changed, so they can’t spread genetic alterations to normal plants.

The GreenVax project still has a long way to go. It needs to show that it can produce sufficient quantities of purified vaccine-ready protein quickly and safely. And such a vaccine would have to be tested in humans and get the approval of the Food and Drug Administration before it can be provided more widely.

The consortium plans to build a 145,000-square-foot vaccine production facility in Bryan, Texas, managed by G-Con. One innovation being developed: Mobile manufacturing “pods” that can be deployed swiftly in areas where the vaccine is urgently needed.

GreenVax hopes to produce the initial 10 million doses of H1N1 vaccine within 12 months. Large-scale human clinical trials are expected to begin in 2011, and could take up to 18 months to complete. The setup could be used to produce other vaccines as well.

“The science hasn’t yet been unleashed to get past chicken eggs for making vaccines,” says Dr. Giroir. “But now that the system is stressed, there’s a reason to get past it.”

By GAUTAM NAIK, Online.wsj

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Fewer high school students are using tobacco these days, but those who are still picking up the habit do not always get the tools they need to quit, school officials in Saratoga Springs fear.

So teachers at the Saratoga Springs High School will offer smoking cessation classes in early May that they hope will provide tools to help students give up the unhealthy habit.

The eight-week, after-school class is voluntary and will show students the long-term effects that smoking or chewing tobacco can have on their health, as well as the ways the habit affects their personal finances. It will also provide a venue for peer support, organizers say.

The class will also be open to staff members who are trying to quit.

Several students have already indicated their desire to quit and enrolled in the program, said Lynette Whaley, the high school’s 12th-grade principal.

“A lot of the kids who skip classes do so because they can’t get through the day without a cigarette,” she said recently. “Once they realize they’re addicted and they can’t make it through the day, I think we have an opportunity to catch them.”

The cessation class, which will be taught by a health teacher and a biology teacher who quit smoking cold turkey years ago, is a rarity among area high schools, organizers say.

But even before the first class, fears have arisen over whether state funding to train teachers and buy materials for the course will disappear because of New York’s budget woes.

Greg Stevens, the tobacco-free school policy coordinator for Saratoga County, said he hopes state leaders will see the value of such programs and recognize that the progress made in recent years will be sustained only if efforts to combat tobacco use continue.

Campaigns and education efforts undertaken by the school and other anti-tobacco groups have been shown to produce results, he

said.

In 2000, 35 percent of 12th-grade students and 20 percent of 10th-grade students at Saratoga Springs High School said they smoked. Eight years later, those numbers had fallen to 22 percent and 12 percent respectively, according to a study by the Saratoga Partnership for Prevention.

Those numbers will fall even further when students are given the tools they need to quit, such as the cessation class, Stevens said.

“Kids are at a stage in their life where they feel fearless, so half of the struggle is just getting them to the point where they say they want to quit,” he said. “But we also have to give them the tools to do that.”

The cessation class is one example of the school district’s recent push to expand and enhance its tobacco-control policy.

Officials have also checkered the school with new signs to make it clear that students — as well as adult visitors — are not to use tobacco while on school grounds.

Staff members patrol the area to look for evidence of smoking, like cigarette butts or the smell of smoke.

Whaley, the principal, said another important change was revising the school’s tobacco policy to include all forms of tobacco use, including smokeless tobacco, which she said has become more common in recent years.

“I don’t know if kids are seeing it from sports figures or in entertainment or what, but we want to make it clear that anything they do with tobacco is not safe,” she said.

Rick Stoddard, a popular anti-smoking speaker who lost his wife to lung cancer, will also speak with students during an assembly on March 5.

Whaley said she hoped the totality of the school’s efforts will be enough to counteract the heavy influence of tobacco companies.

“The marketing is always going to be out there, so we have to do our part to present the other side of it,” she said.

By DREW KERR, Poststar

French advertising companies are often criticised for using sexual images to sell everything from designer spectacles to sweetcorn. Now, for the first time, a controversy has erupted in France over the use of sexually suggestive posters as a deterrent.

A campaign to discourage young people from smoking shows male and female teenagers kneeling in front of a man, as if being forced to have oral sex. A cigarette takes the place of the man’s sexual organ. The caption reads: “Smoking is to be a slave to tobacco.”

The campaign, which was devised for a pressure group supporting the rights of non-smokers, has been attacked as “scandalous” and “potentially counter-productive” by feminist and pro-family campaigners.

The advertising agency behind the posters says only a shock campaign can halt the rise in smoking amongst 13 to 15-year-olds in France.

Marco de la Fuente, the leader of the project for the BDDP et Fils ad agency, said: “The old arguments – tobacco is bad for you – don’t work any more. The message here is that tobacco is a form of submission. In the popular imagination, oral sex is the perfect symbol of submission.”

Gerard Audureau, the president of Les Droits des Non-fumeurs (The Rights of Non-smokers), the pressure group which commissioned the ads, said health arguments did not reach teenagers.

“Young people think that they are invincible, immortal,” he said.

“Fear of sexual exploitation worries them more than illness.”

Opposition to the ads – to be shown in bars, clubs and newspapers – has been widespread.

Florence Montreynaud, of the feminist pressure group Chiennes de Garde (Guard Bitches), said that it was “inadmissible” that an image implying underage sex should be exploited, even in a good cause.

Christiane Terry, of the conservative group Familles de France, said she will lodge a complaint with the French advertising standards watchdog.

“Mixing up tobacco dependence and sex is ridiculous and scandalous,” she said.

Surveys suggest smoking is, overall, in decline in France but becoming more common among teenagers. The number of French 13 to 15-year-olds who smoke is estimated to have increased by 66 per cent between 2004 and 2008.

Almost one in five French 16 to 20-year-olds now smokes, compared to one in 10 a decade ago.

However, in the population as a whole 55 billion cigarettes were smoked in 2009, down from 97 billion cigarettes in 1991.

Last year, however, there was a slight increase – 2.6 per cent – in overall smoking as the effect of the 2008 ban on smoking in bars, cafes and restaurants began to wear off.

The non-smokers’ rights group says it does not care if adults are shocked by its posters.

Mr Audureau said: “Very few anti-smoking campaigns catch the attention of the young. You have to use extreme images to make them take notice.”

By John Lichfield, Nzherald

NDIANAPOLIS — It wasn’t a surprise to state legislators when the General Assembly’s committee deadline passed Monday without a proposed smoking ban moving to the Senate.

Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, told The Associated Press earlier this month the Senate isn’t ready to consider a statewide ban this year because it could hurt businesses during this down economy.

“It’s so nonsensical to say this isn’t the year,” said Rep. Charlie Brown, a Gary Democrat who wrote the bill proposing the smoking ban. “It’s just sad we’re always the last state to pass these good public policies.”

Brown said he plans to propose the smoking ban again this year as an amendment to a Senate bill. If that long shot doesn’t work, he will try for a ban again in 2011.

“We’ll be back next year in full force,” he said.

Even before the smoking ban died in a Senate committee, Brown’s bill was watered down with exemptions.

The original bill exempted casinos and pari-mutuel horse racing venues. Other House members added more exemptions for bars, restaurants, fraternal clubs, smoke shops and small businesses not visited by the public.

There are 37 states with smoke-free laws for workplaces, and 27 of those states ban smoking in bars and restaurants. Michigan’s smoking ban for bars, restaurants and workplaces is scheduled to take effect in May.

Local governments in Indiana are able to adopt rules regulating smoking, but Brown said people who travel around the state shouldn’t have to understand the vast patchwork of local rules just to avoid breathing secondhand smoke.

Smoke-free advocates in Indiana did win one victory in this year’s General Assembly.

A Senate bill to abolish the executive board of Indiana Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation, and transfer the program to the Indiana Department of Health, failed in a House committee.

The program’s supporters feared shifting the program would have hurt its effectiveness.

By KEVIN ALLEN, Southbendtribune

Two regulations on tobacco products – a fee on permits to sell tobacco and a ban on dissolvable tobacco – failed to get out of an Idaho Senate committee Monday.

Fees for selling tobacco

Stores selling tobacco in Idaho may not see a fee of up to $140 for the cost of state tobacco licensing and enforcement. The Senate Health and Welfare Committee voted Monday to hold onto a proposal from Sen. Elliot Werk that would add a fee to cover the Idaho Tobacco Project, which currently issues tobacco permits and inspects retailers every year. The Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) and Idaho State Police (ISP) spend about $294,000 a year on the program.

“I feel that the taxpayers of Idaho should not be paying the cost of retailers to sell tobacco,” Werk said. Funding for the program comes largely from the DHW’s budget. The Idaho Millennium Fund, the annual payout of Idaho’s settlement money with tobacco companies, covers $94,000 for ISP’s inspection costs. Werk estimated that stores would see a $140 or $150 fine of their tobacco license. “The $140 cost could be recouped with a very small increase in price,” he said, likely less than 5 cents a pack.

Only Sen. Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise, voted in support of the new fee. She said the proposal is like similar user fees lawmakers are considering this session, like at state parks. “We have in many instances shifted the cost of services to those who do use them,” she said. “I think it’s very reasonable to put this forward.”

Opposition to the plan centered on the added cost to stores. “Our small retailers are struggling as it is,” said Sen. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle. “To add another burden seems unfair to me.”

“This is a tough economy, and a lot of our small stores are fighting to keep their doors open,” said Pam Eaton, president of the Idaho Retailers Association. “Retailers already pay a lot of taxes and a lot into Idaho.”

Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Coeur d’Alene, said state tobacco taxes are already being used for state services. “The smokers of this state, through their cigarette tax, are paying for the $120 million that we spent on remodeling and adding to (the Idaho Capitol),” he said. The cigarette tax is paying off bonds for the recently restored capitol. “Seems like a pretty fair swap to me.”

“Our tobacco tax doesn’t even cover the current cost we have associated with tobacco,” Werk responded to Hammond. He said taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products bring in $50 million, but smoking-related Medicaid costs to Idaho total $80 million.

Broadsword held the legislation in the committee rather than voting to get rid of it. That means the plan could resurface. Broadsword and Werk told IdahoReporter that lawmakers could still dedicate part of the tobacco taxes to DHW’s work or raise tobacco taxes, but that fees to sellers are off the table.

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee also rejected Werk’s proposed ban on dissolvable tobacco. Werk defined the product for the committee: “Dissolvable tobacco is finely-ground and flavored tobacco packaged to look like candy, breath strips, and mints. They contain between 60 and 300 percent of the nicotine delivered by a cigarette. They have the same health problems and cancer issues as any tobacco that’s placed in your mouth.” Werk said it should be outlawed because he feels it’s targeted to children. “It’s being marketed very heavily to teens,” he said. “This kind of product is an entry into the world of tobacco and nicotine addiction.”

Several other lawmakers agreed with Werk’s assessment of dissolvable tobacco. “It’s not a good product and it’s marketed toward to youth,” said Sen. Charles Coiner, R-Twin Falls, who said the packaging looked like candy.

“This definitely would be an attractive package,” said Sen. Les Bock, D-Boise. “I don’t see how a reasonable person could not say these would be really attractive to kids.” Coiner and Sen. Denton Darrington, R-Declo, joined the two Democrats on the panel in support of the ban. The five other Republicans on the panel voted down the ban. Sen. Melinda Smyser, R-Parma, initially voted in favor of the ban, which would have sent it to the Senate floor, but changed her stance after the votes were tallied. Before the vote, she said that she had a conflict of interest on the issue. Her husband, Skip Smyser, runs a lobbying firm that represents the tobacco company Altria. Smyser said after the meeting that she exercised her freedom of choice in changing her vote.

Steve West, speaking to lawmakers on behalf of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, said the company wasn’t targeting children under 18 with dissolvable tobacco. “They are a legal tobacco product developed for adults who choose to use tobacco.” He also said the products’ child-resistant packaging is harder to open than some prescription drugs. He also said there’s no scientific reason to ban dissolvable tobacco but allow cigarettes, cigars, and chew. “We haven’t seen any basis or evidence for dissolvable tobacco to be prohibited,” he said. “I think selective prohibitions are really poor public policy.”

“If I had my druthers, we’d ban tobacco,” Werk said after West spoke. “I can’t see what’s good about the product in any form.” He said the advertising and relative recent introduction led him to propose the ban. ““I’d like us to prohibit the sales of these products because they’re meant as an introduction for teens and young people to become addicted to nicotine, and then begin their lifelong tobacco habit.” Werk said it’s unlikely Idaho lawmakers will debate the ban on dissolvable tobacco going forward.

By Brad Iverson-Long, Idahoreporter

IN the Embajadores room at the Habana Libre hotel the air is thick with the sweet, honeyed smoke of cigars. Outside, Havana’s La Rampa street bustles with the sound of the early-evening crowd. A queue forms around Coppelia’s parlour, a favorite with the locals, reputedly making the best ice cream on the island.

Beyond, a short walk away, lies the Malecón, the weathered promenade that snakes its way around Havana’s northern coastline, busy filling up with Cubans who go there to meet, flirt, smoke and exchange gossip.

Back inside the Habana Libre, once the headquarters of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary armed forces, the Embajadores room is virtually full. Around 500 cigar aficionados, a mix of distributors, importers, specialists and enthusiastic smokers have gathered for the premiere of Trinidad’s Robusto T.

On that evening a year ago, it is the first time the cigar is smoked anywhere in the world. Among the aficionados it is well received. Of the many descriptions heard that night is woody, spicy, full-bodied and creamy. Many people compliment it on having a wonderful draw.

As the cigars are handed out on trays, all eyes turn to a small group of VIPs notable for their late arrival. Among them is David Soul, better known as the actor who played Hutch in the television series Starsky and Hutch. For a moment he’s in danger of upstaging Fidelito, Fidel Castro’s son, a regular at such occasions. Welcome to night three of the Festival del Habano, a week-long celebration of the Cuban tobacco industry. If you thought the world of wine appreciation was niche, try cigars.

One year on, anyone who is anyone in the cigar world will this weekend be flying into Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport for the 12th annual festival. They will get five days of cigar tastings, tobacco-plantation visits, seminars, factory tours and smoking, lots and lots of smoking.

It is, says Simon Chase, a former director of London-based cigar importer Hunters & Frankau and a festival regular, a chance to rub shoulders with the movers and shakers in the Cuban tobacco industry and experience the tradition of Cuba’s cigar lineage first hand.

It was through Mr Chase that I enjoyed my first experience of cigars in 2004. My first lesson was not to inhale – as with wine, cigar appreciation is all about the taste. (Although it is worth pointing out that the US National Cancer Institute warns that there is no safe tobacco, and cigar smoke, like cigarette smoke, contains toxic and cancer-causing chemicals that are harmful to both smokers and nonsmokers.)

“One tastes a cigar and smokes a cigarette,” Mr Chase told me. “In that sense it is an entirely different experience. Like a fine wine, each cigar is a blend of aged tobacco. So one doesn’t inhale, one gently puffs, rather like sipping vintage Bordeaux.”

With this in mind I was invited a few years ago to judge in a contest to ascertain which brand of Cuban cigars matched best with Scotch whisky. After sipping and puffing my way through a number of combinations, I found that the sweeter the beverage the better the match. So port and rum work very well with most cigars. Some whiskies and particularly red wine (although premium aged blends and sweeter single malts tend to be an exception to the rule) do tend to dry the palate, which can leave a nasty, bitter flavor. In the end we chose Macallan, a whisky noted for its mahogany color and distinctive nose of dried fruit, chocolate orange, wood spices and full, rich oak flavor; which we paired with a Partagas Piramides cigar.

It was on that first trip to the Festival del Habano that I was struck by the similarities between wine appreciation and cigar appreciation. Both are agricultural products, have long and distinguished histories, command the same attention to detail in production and packaging, and can age for many years.

Moreover, as a great wine is defined by the terroir of its vineyard, so the character of a fine cigar is intimately connected with the land where the tobacco grows.

A key fixture of the festival is a visit to one of Cuba’s tobacco-growing regions. The early-morning drive from Havana to Vuelta Abajo in the westernmost corner of the Pinar del Rio tobacco-growing province passes through a patchwork of fields filled with lush, green plants.

Visually, I found it reminiscent of Chile’s Maipo valley, although instead of vineyards there are tobacco fields. Around 80,000 acres of tobacco are planted each year in the region. The growing process lasts around 10 months ending with the harvest between January and March.

After the harvest, the leaf is taken to the farmer’s curing barn where it is hung, dried and gathered together before undergoing a natural fermentation. This process sweats out the impurities, reducing acidity, tar and nicotine, and creating a finer, purer flavor. The leaves are then hand-sorted into sizes before being baled up and transferred to the warehouse, where they are left to age for three years.

The next step mirrors the blending art found in the wine and Scotch whisky industry as each tobacco plot produces a variety of flavors, which the master blender, or ligador, selects. The final blend is then rolled in the many factory houses dotted around Havana. In that sense, it is one of the world’s last luxury-goods items to be produced on a mass scale by hand.

As a shorthand guide, those wanting a full-bodied rich cigar should look out for Partagas, Cuaba, Bolivar and Ramon Allones. Perhaps a little lighter, but still heavy are Cohiba, Montecristo, Vegas Robaina and Trinidad. Romeo y Julieta, Quintero, Punch and H. Upmann offer a lighter smoke. The most delicate flavors are achieved by Hoyo de Monterrey, San Cristobal de la Habana and Guantanamera, which creates a nutty, intense and fragrant flavour.

This year, at the 12th festival, there will be a presentation of a new size of Romeo y Julieta cigar created with women smokers in mind. Mr Chase welcomes the development but says, ironically, it is the male interest that has fuelled the recent interest in the product.

“One thing about cigar smoking is that it is predominantly a male preserve,” he says. “Over the years there have been quite a lot of male bastions assailed and taken over by the other gender. Here is one [cigar smoking] which is still a male preserve.”

Ranald Macdonald, managing director of the London-based restaurant group Boisdale, has been taking a group to the festival for the past 10 years. He says that the pace of economic change in Havana has been such that a decade has been comparable to 40 years in Europe. As a result there has been a general improvement in cigar manufacturing, and thus the overall quality of cigars has never been higher.

“Cigars now taste so much better than they did 10 years ago,” Mr Macdonald says. “This is down to a number of improvements but to give one example, from 2002 they have been freezing cigars which has eliminated tobacco-eating pests such as weevil.”

This weekend, Mr Macdonald’s group will be scouring the cigar shops of Havana to stock up on a year’s supply of tobacco.

“Havana is one of the most enigmatic places on earth,” he says. “And everything about it, from where it sprung from in the 17th century to what it went through in the 20th century to where it is now, makes Europe feel rather dull.” I’ll smoke to that.

By Will Lyons, Theaustralian
February 23, 2010

Senate Bill 298, which threatens to abolish the Indiana Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation Agency, essentially died in the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday with no action taken. The day before, at least 40 advocates supporting the agency testified before legislators for 2 1/2 hours, but no one from the public at-large spoke on the merits of the bill.

The non-vote was little cause for the bill’s critics to celebrate.

“I am hearing there may never be one (a vote), one way to let it die in committee,” said Dr. Richard Feldman, the former state health commissioner. “That would be good news for now, but it will certainly be inserted in another bill or be decided upon at the end of the session in conference committee.”

If that happens, the measure could still eliminate the agency’s program with its volunteer executive board and shift the agency’s nearly $11 million budget to the Department of Health, where it could be more easily controlled by the governor’s office.

An independent agency with expertise in community-based anti-tobacco programs, the agency has educated youth on the dangers of using tobacco while helping adults quit smoking for the past 10 years, funded with $150 million in tobacco-settlement monies.

Indiana will receive an estimated $622 million in fiscal year 2010 from tobacco revenues and the landmark 1998 settlement between the tobacco industry and the U.S. government.

SB298 was filed for greater efficiency, according to Republican Sen. Luke Kenley of Noblesville, urged by Gov. Mitch Daniels to draft a bill that would eliminate what the governor and some legislators feel is a duplication of efforts within programs.

Considering the changing economic climate, legislators will ultimately have to decide which is more important – the programs or education, he said.

“With all the problems with the budget, people need to realize that we are trying to save teachers’ jobs and keep schools open. The money to do that will have to come from somewhere. With this bill, administrative costs will go down. Most states run those programs through their health departments. ITPC (Indiana Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation Agency) has 14 employees which can easily be duplicated.”

But Feldman, who headed the state health agency from 1999 to 2003, disagreed.

“It’s absolutely not feasible for the Department of Health to duplicate ITPC’s programs,” he said. “The Department of Health does not have designated persons with the type of expertise needed to continue the programs. There’s a lack of essential capacity to work with local communities, coalitions and nonprofits, and write grants.”

Kenley also said the governor was looking at a 2000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study on smoking adults when the agency started and Indiana ranked 49th.

“It still ranks 49th in smoking adults,” he said.

Statistics show that agency programs might not have made the same impact on adults as youth. Youth smoking rates dropped by 42 percent among high school students and by 58 percent among middle school students.

The agency is credited for the increase in smoke-free homes among smokers – up from 29 percent in 2002 to 55 percent in 2008. During the past two years, there’s been a 600 percent increase in the number of calls to the Indiana Tobacco Quitline, with 21,000 callers. Available around the clock, the Quitline receives hundreds of calls each week from Hoosiers interested in quitting smoking. Trained quit coaches are available to provide tips and free counseling on strategies for quitting.

Indiana is one of the nation’s biggest cigarette consumers. In 2008, 26.1 percent of adult Hoosiers were smokers, the nation’s second highest rate, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year, Indiana reported 9,800 tobacco-related deaths.

Tobacco costs Hoosiers more than $2 billion a year in health care costs.

If SB298 is slipped into another bill late in the session, another loss would be counter-marketing against tobacco companies, currently solely maintained by the agency. At the meeting Wednesday, Rep. Bill Crawford said that other groups might provide education but do not actively campaign against and raise awareness of specific products that are marketed toward children like the agency does.

“In tough economic times, it may seem that the tobacco settlement money is an easy target to go after to fill in short-term budget gaps, but that would be very short-sighted,” said Tim Filler, chairman of the Campaign for a Tobacco-Free Indiana. “Until recently, in states such as Mississippi and Ohio, great things were happening with tobacco control. Then those independent agencies were eliminated and virtually all of the progress that had been made with regard to getting people to quit has stopped.

For Feldman, who served as State Health Commissioner from 1997 to 2001, the potential of losing Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation funding is personal.

“My proudest moment as state health commissioner was sitting beside Gov. Frank O’Bannon in March 2000 as he signed Indiana’s historic tobacco settlement legislation and handed me the pen,” he said. “This legislation, the state’s greatest public health achievement, created the ITPC with funding adequate to meet guidelines recommended by the CDC. I believed it was essential to create an independent institution, separate from politics and the tobacco industry, separate from the governor.

“In 1999 Indiana was in the national spotlight, the only state using all the money for health and meeting the CDC minimum for tobacco control funding,” he said. “Governors in other states have raided that fund over and over. The action will be a pivotal point in the future of health in Indiana and determine the health for our children forever.”

Dawn Shelton, student specialist in the CARSS program at the Eggleston building in Madison, fears the outcome of the bill and the effect on her students who abuse tobacco. This year, 234 students are enrolled in CARSS, a high-school alternative. Her students with tobacco addictions receive help from Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation programs.

“Fifty-six of them were sent here this year due to smoking,” she said. “It’s illegal but teens think they can smoke. And parents are helping kids buy the tobacco. The kids become addicted, which causes disruptive behavior in the classroom. I spoke with Sen. Jim Lewis and Rep. Dave Cheatham, who both said they were voting the language out of the bill that would eliminate ITPC funding.”

Lewis, D-Charlestown, sees the non-vote Thursday as a tug-of-war between Gov. Daniels and the speaker of the House.

“Could it be resurrected at the eleventh hour in conference committee late in the session? Possibly. But, in my opinion, it’s a long shot. The House leadership does not want this bill to pass.”

By Pat Whitney, Madisoncourier