“Tobacco education programs have been shown to work in other states, yet they are still being cut in Colorado,” anti-tobacco activist and motivational speaker Patrick Reynolds lamented, as he spoke to a group of about 50 students in the Tivoli Turnhalle, Nov. 20.

Reynolds’ visit was part of the 26th Great American Smoke-Out which takes place annually on the third Thursday of November.

Reynolds is the grandson of R.J. Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. He turned his back on the family fortune and business in the late 70s after losing his father to lung disease related to smoking.

“We find our greatest glory in our deepest wounds,” Reynolds said. “I do this (speak out against tobacco companies) because I lost my dad to smoking.”

Prior to his speech on campus, Reynolds spent the morning at a press conference at the state capitol building. There, he joined with the Colorado Tobacco Education Prevention Alliance to urge Gov. Bill Owens not to eliminate tobacco education funding through the proposed securitization of tobacco funds.

Securitization, or the sale of tobacco-backed securities, would result in an $800 million immediate payout from the tobacco companies’ Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) rather than collecting an estimated $2.5 billion over a 21 year period.

So far a small portion of the MSA money has been used to fund research grants to study tobacco and substance abuse; it has funded tobacco education and has been used to boost health care in areas burdened by tobacco related diseases.

Opponents of the securitization proposal fear that the $800 million will not be used for anti-tobacco related issues.

“If the securitization proposal passes, the $800 million will not be used for tobacco education programs,” Reynolds said.

This fear is echoed by Brian Anderson, spokesperson for the Colorado Department of the Treasury, and executive assistant to State Treasurer Mike Coffman who initially proposed the idea of securitization in 1999.

“The Joint Budget Committee has said that if securitization does happen, the funding stream for tobacco prevention and cessation programs is questionable, and these programs would be phased out,” Anderson said.

Gov. Owens’ proposal is to utilize $80 million for the state general fund and the remainder of the money will be placed in a “Rainy Day Fund.”

“It makes me sick that this is what they want to do with the tobacco money,” said WB “Dub” Jones, a former smoker and motivational speaker specializing in tobacco cessation.

According to the American Lung Association of Colorado, smoking related illnesses kill more than 4,500 Coloradoans annually, and 26,000 Colorado teens under the age of 18 become daily smokers each year.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends that Colorado spend an average of $44.3 million on tobacco education per year in order to have a successful program, but the funding for the 2004 fiscal year is 15.5 percent of the recommended amount.

Funding for tobacco education and prevention was $7.6 million in fiscal year 2003, and has been cut to $3.8 million for 2004.

The effects of the cuts to tobacco prevention and cessation programs are already being felt on Auraria Campus.

“The Bacchus and Gamma Peer Education Network program that funds programs for the Metro State Counseling center is supported by the tobacco settlement, and has already been cut this year,” said Doug Smith “CQ”, a psychologist and counselor who works at Metro’s counseling center located on the sixth floor of the Tivoli.

“There is a clear correlation in states that don’t fund tobacco education, and the number of kids who smoke,” Reynolds said, referring to study in the Journal of Health Economics that found that states with the best funded tobacco education programs had more than double the reduction in cigarette sales.

“Also contributing to the smoking numbers in Colorado is that Colorado has one of the lowest tobacco taxes in the country,” Reynolds said.

In Colorado, there is a .20 tax per pack of cigarettes, ranking the state 43rd out of 51 (includes Washington D.C.) for low tobacco taxation, according to numbers compiled by the Federation of Tax Administrators for 2003.

Reynolds acknowledged that smokers should be accountable for their choice to smoke, but that the tobacco companies are also accountable because they withheld information about the dangers of their product from the public.

“Let them be accountable for some of the Medicare and the high cost of healthcare,” Reynolds said.
He also noted the tobacco industry hooks their consumers while they’re young.

“Surveys show that 90 percent of smokers were addicted to smoking before the age of 19,” he said. “That shows that it is mostly kids who start to smoke, therefore tobacco education helps to ruin tobacco profits by taking away their (tobacco companies’) profit base.”

Reynolds said if there is a one percent drop in the numbers of smokers every year for five years, there will be 149,500 fewer adult smokers, which should be motivation enough for keeping the tobacco education funding in place.

Reynolds lamented that not only were tobacco companies and securitization proposals a threat to the public health, but corporate giants in general and government bureaucracy were also to be blamed for the ongoing smoking problems in society.

“We have not had the success with the federal government and state legislatures, and that has to do with campaign costs and special interest groups and the power that big corporations have over government officials,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds advocated campaign finance reform as the key to cutting corporate influence, and public funding of politicians as an important step in decreasing the corporate influence over government officials.

“If I ran for Congress, the one thing that I think I would be interested in looking at would be to force big corporations to be owned by a local individual,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said he hoped that this proposal would restore a more community minded concern that the “mom-and-pop” business of the past had fostered.

Reynolds predicted that we will eventually have a tobacco free society, and he is encouraged by the complete smoking bans passed in six states.

Colorado currently has nine counties and 37 municipalities that have approved a full or partial smoking ban in public areas.

“The tobacco industry will be brought to heel as they should have years ago,” Reynolds said. “You are the future and because of you we will have a tobacco free society.”

Reynolds’ visit was sponsored by the University of Colorado, Metro, and the American Lung Association.

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