Ads Funded by Prop. 10 Tobacco Tax to Debut
Get ready for a $14-million statewide advertising blitz warning of smoking’s dangers and extolling new programs to aid the state’s youngest children.
It will be the first salvo from the California Children and Families Commission, created by 1998’s Proposition 10 to spend nearly $700 million a year in new tobacco taxes on early childhood development and to fight smoking.
The ad program comes after months of criticism that the commission and its 58 sister county panels are virtually invisible and have been too slow to spend the money.
“We haven’t had a lot of visibility,” admitted Rob Reiner during a break in a commission meeting Thursday in Santa Ana. “We are working feverishly to get it done.”
The advertising will start Tuesday, six weeks before the 50-cent-a-pack tobacco tax faces possible repeal on the March ballot. Commission members insisted that the timing coincides with the kickoff of county programs around the state.
The spots will include a statewide 800 number that parents and caregivers can call seeking help for their children--from early literacy instruction to asthma treatment--commission spokeswoman Kristina Parham said.
The ads will run through May 15 on television, radio and billboards and in print media statewide in English and Spanish.
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