Gregoire criticized for anti-smoking cuts

A leading researcher of secondhand smoke says Gov. Chris Gregoire is no longer the anti-tobacco governor.

Stanton Glantz is a professor of cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco, who spoke Wednesday to a group of public health professionals meeting at the Yakima Convention Center.

He criticized the governor and the Washington Legislature for cutting tobacco-control programs.

"The fact that she let the program be gutted means she's just riding on the old coattails," Glantz said.

Gregoire made a reputation as state attorney general in 1998 by leading the states in negotiating a multibillion-dollar settlement with tobacco companies.

Gregoire spokesman Glenn Kuper told The Yakima Herald-Republic that she instilled a culture of tobacco prevention in the state but many programs had to be cut because of the budget shortfall.

"We have tougher indoor smoking laws, adult smoking rates are down more than 30 percent, and youth smoking overall has dropped by about half," Kuper said.

The big tobacco settlement still brings in about $120 million a year to Washington state, with most going to pay for state-subsidized health care.

But the 2009 Legislature cut 43 percent from the state's $28.5 million-a-year tobacco-control program, which pays for the Quitline telephone help line and media campaigns targeting young people.

The Legislature also approved diverting 6 cents of the $2 per pack cigarette tax from tobacco programs into the general fund.

"They raided our program," said Terry Reid, manager of the tobacco control program, which is housed in the Department of Health. Reid introduced Glantz at the conference, calling him the man most likely to appear in the nightmares of tobacco industry lawyers and executives.

Glantz has spent most of his career fighting big tobacco as both a researcher and activist, prodding politicians and public-health organizations.

He encouraged the public health professionals to lobby politicians to restore funding to tobacco-control programs.

"Tell them, 'It's your fault people are dropping dead.'"

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Information from: Yakima Herald-Republic, http://www.yakima-herald.com