Stamping Out Smoking : With $1 Million to Spend, Coalition to Plot Anti-Cigarette Campaign

Long Beach health officials are exploring ways of spending the city’s share of tobacco tax money--$1 million--in an ambitious statewide effort to cut cigarette smoking by 75% by 1999.

A coalition of more than two dozen local experts will meet for the first time next week to discuss strategies for the new tax money approved by voters more than a year ago, the first ever allocated for education to stop an addiction blamed for nearly one-third of the nation’s cancer deaths.

The money is the product of Proposition 99, which raised the tax on cigarettes 25 cents a pack and imposed similar increases on pipe, cigar and other tobacco products.

The tax generated $1.5 billion statewide, and just more than $1 million of it has trickled down to the Health Department and school district in Long Beach--a city with a sizable population of minorities and children considered at “high risk” of tobacco addiction.

Local health experts say they have their work cut out for them.

“This is a very large community and it is a very diverse community with lots of populations at risk for using tobacco products,” said Alan Henderson, chairman of the health sciences department at Cal State Long Beach. “This is money earmarked for education that has not been here before, and a lot can be done with that amount of money for the benefit of the people in Long Beach.”

But officials concede that the local money pales next to the $2.5 billion the tobacco industry spends on national advertising yearly, much of it, they say, aimed at minorities and adolescents.

A recent cigarette called Uptown was pulled off the market by its manufacturers after health advocates decried a marketing campaign that clearly targeted blacks, who suffer one of the highest lung cancer death rates in the country, cancer experts report.

And health officials have long complained that cigarette packaging and ad images are seductive to children, 70% of whom will try tobacco at some point, researchers say.

“Considering the dramatic need for education, this is not a lot of money--a drop in the bucket--and it is very important that it be spent wisely by someone who can deliver,” said Jayne Lastusky, executive director of the American Cancer Society’s Long Beach unit and a coalition member.

The coalition also will include representatives from the American Heart Assn., area hospitals, public schools and Cal State Long Beach. It will monitor the spending of $632,000 administered by the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services and $408,000 by the Long Beach Unified School District.

Most cities in Los Angeles County are served by the county’s massive health department. Because Long Beach is one of only three communities that operates its own health agency, it has the unique opportunity to fight tobacco on the local level.

Henderson said it is vital that education go “beyond pamphlets.” The coalition will attempt to define the tobacco problem in Long Beach, determine how to stop those who have started and educate those who have not.

Experts hope to see the money used to enhance programs like Smoke-Free 2000, aimed at educating first-graders to ensure that they will be nonsmokers when they enter high school. Another concept is a hot line with information about stop-smoking programs for schools, industries and individuals.

The funds became available in January and the health department hired consultant Judy Ross to direct the tobacco control program last month. Already, though, there is concern that Long Beach has fallen behind schedule.

While the coalition approaches its first meeting Wednesday, the state is already preparing to launch an anti-tobacco media blitz April 11. Competition will be stiff for millions more dollars available to agencies by request, and Long Beach could miss out if its plans are not firmed up soon, Henderson said.

“I am concerned Long Beach is behind,” he said. “This is more money than has been seen in a long, long time for health educators. And there is a lot of excitement among people in health education who have been toiling in the vineyards without any resources for so long.”