BOISE, Idaho — Smoking cigarettes is on the decline in Idaho, but misuse of funds to prevent smoking and the increase in young people vaping have created a modern nicotine problem.
- Idaho gets tens of millions of dollars a year in a tobacco settlement but spends a small fraction on smoking cessation programs
- Sen. Janie Ward Engelking (D) says there's no question that settlement money has been misappropriated in the past
- Engelking says both sides of the isle are awake to the threat of Vaping and plan to increase funding to fight it
- The tobacco settlement was agreed upon in 1998 and is based on cigarette sales each year
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
Smoking cigarettes is on the decline in Idaho.
"Kids have really turned against smoking we all have," said Liz Hall, division director for the American Lung Association.
No surprise considering cigarettes taste and smell bad not to mention causing cancer. Still, Idaho just received a mostly failing report card on its efforts to stop smoking.
"The first area we looked at was tobacco control and prevention program funding that's one of the F's we received," said Hall.
We also got F's for battling flavored products and tobacco taxation, which is one of the lowest in the nation.
Despite that, Hall says Idaho takes in more than 70 million dollars a year in tobacco taxes and the tobacco settlement every year, but it spends just over three million on tobacco prevention.
So where does all that money go? Especially the settlement.
According to Senator Janie Ward-Engelking, a lot of it was used instead for medicaid expansion.
She said there's no question that this money has been used in the past for things not related to smoking cessation.
"Absolutely it has been and it's time we stop because we need this money," said Ward-Engelking.
We need it she says for preventing the new and improved version of cigarettes, also known as vape.
"We have a huge uptick in vaping," the senator said.
"The last F is in flavored tobacco products. We don't restrict those at all in our state. And that's cause for concern. Cause 80% of our youth who vape or smoke tried a flavored tobacco product first," said Hall.
The annual tobacco settlement is based on tobacco sales only, so as sales of regular cigarettes go down, tobacco companies pay less. And if they can get all smokers to switch to vape, they'd theoretically not pay anything, and as you might guess, vape sales are skyrocketing.
So what does the legislature plan to do about that?
"We're looking at putting a lot more money into schools into education and hopefully prevention. We're seeing a tremendous amount of vaping starting as young as 4th grade," said Ward-Engelking.
Not all the news is bad though. Idaho did get a C rating for clean air laws but they don't include vape. And It got a B rating in access to cessation services, even if they are expensive.
