A state budget proposal before the Indiana Senate could snuff out the state’s top anti-tobacco agency.
The two-year, $28 billion spending plan that would take effect July 1 calls for the abolishment of the Indiana Tobacco Prevention
and Cessation agency and places tobacco-cessation efforts under control of the state Department of Health.
The program’s budget also would be slashed from the $9.2 million it received in fiscal 2010 to roughly $5 million.
Created in 2001, ITPC is funded by some of the $4.5 billion Indiana received from the tobacco industry’s 1998 settlement
with state attorneys general.
“This was a major settlement that was won years ago and the money was supposed to go to tobacco prevention, and clearly
that is not happening,” said Amanda Estridge, Indiana spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society’s Great Lakes
Division.
Top Senate Republicans were in caucus Wednesday morning and could not be reached for comment.
Indiana’s tobacco-cessation program won praise early on from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
for being among the few state programs that actually spent at least the minimum amount the CDC said was needed to effectively
fight tobacco use. That funding reached a high of $32.8 million in 2003.
Rep. Peggy Welch, D-Bloomington and a member of the State Budget Committee, told Associated Press that ITPC receives less state money because the millions of dollars of additional
funding it formerly received were “low hanging fruit” when budget writers were looking for programs to cut.
“We have a hard time in this state investing money now for its long-term gains,” Welch told AP. “It’s
going to save us money in the long run, but we’re not willing to make that investment now.”
State lawmakers have failed to pass a statewide ban on smoking in public places, but more than 30 communities—including
Franklin, Plainfield and Zionsville in the Indianapolis area—have passed smoke-free air ordinances.
ITPC says it has helped cut smoking rates of adult Hoosiers from 31.6 percent in 2001 to 23.1 percent in 2009, and from 27.4
percent to 18.3 percent for the state’s youth.
The agency employees 12 people, including Karla Sneegas, who has served as its executive director since its inception. Sneegas
was unavailable for comment.
Estridge said she was worried that several of those working in the program would lose their jobs if the budget proposal passes.
An Indiana Senate committee on Monday approved the spending plan. If the full Senate approves the bill, it will return to
the House for consideration. The Legislature is set to convene on April 29.
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IBJNews
State's top anti-smoking agency could be abolished
Scott Olson
April 20, 2011
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In my opinion the estridge companies are crooks. They filed bankruptcy on their 'track housing' side of the business two weeks before they closed on one of my clients' homes. When my client first interviewed Estridge as a builder 6 months before, they specifically ASKED about the solvency of their business, knowing that some builders were struggling. Estridge truly misrepresented their financial situation at that time. I suppose I am more unhappy with the whole system than I am with the builder because what the heck==you can file bankruptcy on 'track homes' but still keep building and make money off of 'custom built' homes??? How ridiculous! They are all homes. How can a company be allowed to bilk thousands of dollars from their subcontractors but still be allowed to build houses?? they should have been made to pay back all their unpaid contractors before being allowed to profit from building any more houses! This alone makes them and the system crooks in my eyes. I would never build an estridge home and I would not recommend for my clients either. If they were truly 'bankrupt' how could they afford to keep building homes anyway??? The whole system needs fixed.
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I live a couple blocks east of the Angie's campus and my house is assessed for ~$160,000. If I could get that amount, let alone $384,000 (a 140% bonus), I'd sell in a minute. Either Angie's stockholders just got fleeced, or Angie's is getting about a 58% discount on their property taxes, if these properties are actually worth what they paid Mr. Oesterle for them. Which do you think is the case?
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Perhaps the IMA board is really to blame! They agreed to hire Charles. They can't seemingly find donors among themselves, or bring in new blood that will support the museums operating budget with an expanded museum and money to provide curators with something to do (ie buy art). The headlines of disarray at the museum and mass firings are hurting the reputation of the museum for some time to come. If people on the board had misgivings, perhaps they shpuld have more forcefully opposed efforts that they have seemingly been unable to fund, like expansion and the costs it has created!
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See, I told u Indyman and Dipsicle....this 8 days is overkill. It's barely worth a weekend....great job Tony George! Your dream has been fulfilled....he fans want the I r l back. Thats how good it was.....and that sucked.
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I have been in training for a short time now but right off I can see that safety and quality are the number one issues, my experience as of late has been a positive one, the employees along with Jeff the plant manager and the operation supervisor as well as the engineers are a highly motivated group of people, what an asset for the area to have and for company's in need of a quality metal products.
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Where do the Health groups get their numbers of smokers who have quit from? Do you believe smokers will tell the truth that they have given up since the ban- Nope! they disapear from public and smoke at home.Dig your materiale and you will find that Big Pharma has a huge interest in the no smoking campaign. Cancer is genetic - it's a virus called the human papillomavirus (HPV).
That couldnâ??t have been written any better than if it was written by a rabid, bigoted antismoker. Cut the propaganda. Weâ??ve already heard 30 years too much of it.
â??Even alcohol has medicinal purposes, but smoking, nada.â??
Thatâ??s not correct. There are benefits in smoking. There are long-term risks. But there are benefits, too. A meta-analysis of a good number of recent studies demonstrates a very significant cognitive enhancement from nicotine. And this is just nicotine. There are other aspects of smoking that are beneficial, e.g., psychological, behavioral, perceptual.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20414766
â??I was enslaved by this addiction.â??
Thatâ??s not correct either. Even the Royal College of Physicians, a group that has been committed to antismoking since the early 1960s, has had to concede that the idea of â??nicotine addictionâ?? makes no sense. (see p.45, 2007)
http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/contents/4fc74817-64c5-4105-951e-38239b09c5db.pdf
The latest that smoking is a habit, not an addiction:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100713144920.htm
The point being made is that the above was the â??done thingâ??. Eugenics was viewed as â??progressiveâ??, â??scientificâ??, and â??scholarlyâ??, and embraced by the mega-wealthy and the â??educatedâ??. There were constant eugenics affirmations that sterilizations and bans on tobacco and alcohol would all but eliminate disease, crime, and poverty. Itâ??s called a bandwagon effect. How bans got instituted was elitist fanatics making all sorts of outrageous, erroneous, inflammatory claims about tobacco, alcohol, and particular racial and social groups that whipped the public up into a bigotry/racist frenzy.
There are many similarities with what is occurring with anti-smoking at this time. Itâ??s being portrayed as â??progressiveâ?? â?? look, other states are doing it, why arenâ??t we. There are the same claims that all sorts of diseases are going to magically disappear. Numerous claims are made to appear â??scientificâ??, whereas they are carefully crafted propaganda for maximal inflammatory effect. What we actually have is another bigotry frenzy.
And it again involves the medical establishment that has an horrific track-record when it foolishly ventures into social-engineering, weâ??re-going-to-fix-up-the-world crusades.
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1981/2/1981_2_94_print.shtml
Regarding your comment, you have no one to blame but Amanda Estridge quoted in the article. She's the one who insisted on the Lame-brained, bone-headed all or nothing legislative strategy that resulted in walking away from a 95% ban,including one for 100% of the areas where minors might gather. It's too bad the bill can't get rid of Amanda Estridge.
I feel bad that you are so skeptical of the real world that you can honestly believe that smoking does not cause cancer. Maybe you do know it but you are just in denial. Either way, take about 5 minutes and do some objective research.
Try to stick to scholarly articles, not conspiracy websites.
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/NN/B/C/D/X/_/nnbcdx.pdf
I think it's great that the agency that has had it "nose" stuck in every smoker's business might lose it's funding......poetic justice at it's best!!
the legislature has been unable to pass a comprehensive smoking ban despite evidence suggesting the economic impact is minimal...
the medical & public health community have clearly established the increased risk of death & disease (heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and chronic lung disease to name a few) from both first-hand and second-hand smoke? (so we are unnecessarily exposing our fellow citizens, and workers to increased health risks)...
where is the statesmanship? where is the sensible policy-making?...on behalf of citizens...WAKE-UP INDIANA
and by the way, how much is the tobacco lobby spending in the Statehouse? for shame.
from this article: â??This was a major settlement that was won years ago and the money was supposed to go to tobacco prevention, and clearly that is not happening,â?? said Amanda Estridge, Indiana spokeswoman for the American Cancer Societyâ??s Great Lakes Division.
i'm pretty sure that means money has been used in a less than desireable way. plus, who needs the government telling us whats good and bad for us? let the free market determine what americans can consume and the insurance companies keep us healthy.
A smoking ban would have been good to, but no, nothiong that progressive here
Someone is carrying the water for this bill to make it a reality. That said, in a long session/budget year, the odds of this passing are probably pretty good. And, its effects will linger long after the smoke clears.