Legislature rejects pleas, cuts tobacco-prevention spending; passes vape bill some say could spur youth smoking
In a year when the American Cancer Society asked the Kentucky legislature to increase spending on tobacco prevention, lawmakers cut it and passed an anti-vaping bill that some say could increase cigarette use in the state.
The two-year state budget’s allocation for tobacco prevention — about $8 million shy of advocates’ ask — “certainly is not” enough to combat use in the state, said Doug Hogan, the government relations director in Kentucky for the American Cancer Society and its Cancer Action Network.
The cancer society and others — including the Kentucky Hospital Association, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce — signed onto a letter in January asking for a $10 million investment in the state’s Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Program.
Also writing in support of the $10 million for prevention and cessation were Dr. B. Mark Evers, director of the Markey Caner Center at the University of Kentucky, and Jason Chesney, director of the Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville.
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