Tobacco Control Proposal Criticized

Calling it a break for Big Tobacco, anti-smoking activists are disturbed by a proposal brewing in the Legislature to strip enforcement of the industry from the state Department of Health Services.

The activists, who believe that the department has become one of the toughest tobacco watchdogs in the nation, contend that the move to transfer enforcement powers to the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission results from a new flood of money from tobacco companies to leading Democratic lawmakers.

Assemblyman Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), the legislator proposing the change, denies any influence by the tobacco companies. Wesson, who is poised to become the next Assembly speaker, and other Democratic legislators say they are giving no new consideration to tobacco company issues--though some concede that there is a new willingness to accept their campaign contributions.

The proposal is still in the formative stage and has yet to be introduced as legislation.

Oversight of tobacco sales now consists of sting operations to catch retailers who sell tobacco to minors, as well as store inspections to make sure that tobacco advertising is behind the counter.

The legislation also would establish a new fee to be levied on all retailers of cigarettes, from gas stations to smoke shops.

“I’m trying to get the most bang for the buck,” Wesson said. “We’re losing $200 million a year in black market tobacco products. We can deal with that if we create a tobacco licensing program in a uniform way statewide.”

The move is opposed by the Heath Services Department, which questions whether the ABC has the tools needed to do the job. The proposal has also met with wariness at the ABC, which has complained for years that it lacks the money to handle its current duties of policing bars and liquor stores.

ABC Director Manny Espinoza said he would support the change only if his department received sufficient financial support.

Wesson said he has yet to determine the size of the proposed tobacco licensing fee or how the money would be spent. The ABC has 200 agents and relies on a budget funded solely by alcohol licensing fees set at 1978 rates.

The Health Services Department uses six agents to conduct 2,000 sting operations a year--a figure that Wesson said is insufficient. Wesson, who introduced a measure this year to boost ABC funding, contends that the agency already has the structure in place to license cigarette retailers.

But Ken August, a health department spokesman, said the types of businesses that have the highest rate of tobacco sales to minors, such as doughnut shops and music stores, are not under the watch of the ABC.

In California, the rate of retailers selling tobacco to minors is less than 13%, lower than the national average.

To anti-smoking advocates, the push to change tobacco enforcement has heightened fears that deft public relations work and a flurry of campaign cash are softening lawmakers formerly aligned against tobacco interests.

Stan Glantz, a UC San Francisco professor and author of “The Cigarette Papers and Tobacco War,” said that getting industry enforcement out of the hands of health departments has been part of Big Tobacco’s agenda for a decade.

“There’s no question in my mind that this is a Philip Morris bill,” Glantz said of Wesson’s effort.

Brendan McCormick, a spokesperson for Philip Morris, denied that claim, saying the company supports improved efforts to curb underage smoking but is not involved in the shaping of Wesson’s plan to change enforcement.

Opposition to Tobacco Money Eases

The proposed shift comes at a time when Democratic lawmakers, who hold firm majorities in both houses of the California Legislature, appear less opposed to taking tobacco money.

“This seems to be open season,” said Lisa Rea, head lobbyist for the American Heart Assn. “In the past, Republican members took most of the money, and now Democrats have been as willing to take the money as the Republican Party.”

Tobacco companies poured $1.2 million into the campaigns of 88 state legislators and candidates in California during the 1999-2000 election cycle, most of it coming from Philip Morris. Industry watchers say the firm far outstrips its competitors when it comes to campaign contributions and efforts to burnish its corporate image.

According to a study published by Glantz’s Institute for Health Policy Studies at UC San Francisco, Philip Morris spent $2.2 million in California during the 1999-2000 election cycle on lobbying, contributions to candidates and political action committees.

R.J. Reynolds, by contrast, spent close to $800,000. The study also found that Democrats got 43% of all those tobacco contributions.

The fund-raising record of Assemblywoman Carole Migden, a liberal Democrat from San Francisco, is indicative of changing attitudes toward Philip Morris money.

Before last year, Migden eschewed tobacco contributions. In 2000, Philip Morris became the second-largest contributor to her treasury, with $25,000 in donations, well ahead of some of San Francisco’s major corporations: Chevron, Gap and Bank of America.

Migden said taking tobacco money was not her “proudest moment” but that the pressure of mounting her own campaigns as well as the necessity of generating big donations for the party leadership led her to cash the Philip Morris checks.

Migden also said times have changed.

“The relationship has become more complicated. They [Philip Morris] involve themselves in a lot of civic good works,” she said. Migden noted that the company gave large amounts to the campaign to defeat Proposition 22, last year’s successful initiative to bar same-sex marriage in California.

Other lawmakers, including Wesson, refuse money from other tobacco companies, such as R.J. Reynolds and Brown & Williamson, but do accept money from Philip Morris--so long as the checks come from one of the conglomerate’s subsidiaries.

“They [tobacco companies] are creative about how they give their money out, and that has a great effect on legislators,” the Heart Assn.’s Rea said. “They have a lot more access than we do, because they put all the money into the system through their subsidiaries.”

Wesson accepted $25,000 from Philip Morris subsidiaries such as Miller Brewing Co. in 2000, and does not consider it tobacco money, even though it comes from the same corporate political action committee.

“I don’t think of it as cigarette money,” concurred Assemblywoman Helen Thomson (D-Davis), a nurse who heads the Assembly Health Committee. “I don’t mind taking contributions from Miller beer or Kraft. That’s beer money and macaroni and cheese money.”

Thomson, whose committee reviews most tobacco health legislation and would hear Wesson’s plan if it became a bill, got $7,500 from Kraft and Miller Brewing last year.

‘Good Things . . . Bad Things’

The Democratic Business Political Action Committee, a now-defunct PAC that Thomson controlled along with Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced), did take direct tobacco contributions, raising nearly a fifth of the $345,000 it amassed in 2000 from Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.

Asked if he would consider taking money directly from tobacco firms, Wesson said his position may be changing now that he has the task of raising money for Assembly Democrats in preparation for next year’s elections.

“They have done good things and they’ve done bad things,” Wesson said of tobacco companies. “I’d have to think about it.”