Tobacco Settlement Ballot Initiative

* I applaud the Ventura County Board of Supervisors for refusing to place the Community Memorial Hospital initiative on the ballot.

Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford’s recommendation of how to allocate the tobacco settlement funds represents the opposite of what the tobacco industry wanted to have happen.

The intent of the lawsuit was to recover taxpayer money being spent to treat individuals with tobacco-related disease and to make the tobacco industry accountable and responsible for the tobacco illness and death caused by their deadly products.

It was tobacco industry officials who insisted the settlement stipulate that the money go into the general fund. They are the ones who said there should be no restrictions placed on the expenditure of these funds. They knew that local boards of supervisors would be tempted to use the funds for projects other than those that fight tobacco or serve the health interests of the community. They want other interest groups to pull it apart and water it down.

The tobacco industry does not want this money to prevent it from recruiting future customers.

If we don’t stick to the intent of the lawsuit, then the tobacco industry has won in Ventura County and we will have forever lost our chance to make a major investment in tobacco prevention. We will have missed an opportunity to prevent future disability and death in generations to come.

I urge the supervisors to listen to those of us who have been fighting this battle for so many years. We have watched addicted individuals struggle to quit smoking. We have watched those with tobacco-related diseases struggle for each breath. And, as the American Lung Assn. says, “When you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.”

DEBBIE WEEKS

Executive Director

American Lung Assn. of Santa

Barbara and Ventura Counties