Can’t match Illinois on anti-tobacco spending

It took some looking, but finally there is a silver lining to the Illinois state budget impasse: We couldn’t be ranked for how little of the tobacco settlement we might again spend to prevent kids from smoking.

If we don’t have a budget to report an amount, we can’t be judged.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids each year looks at how the states are spending the 1998 tobacco settlement. States promised to use a significant portion of the money to attack the public health problems caused by tobacco.

This year the states will collect $25.8 billion and spend 1.8 percent of that to stop kids from smoking and to help smokers quit.

Last year Illinois got $1.1 billion and should have spent $136.7 million on smoking cessation, had it followed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations. The state actually spent $11.1 million, or 8 percent of what was recommended.

The state budget mess did briefly close down the Illinois Tobacco Quitline, which employs 27 and costs $325,000 a year to operate. Gov. Bruce Rauner found the money and it was reinstated after an outcry.

The tobacco industry countered Illinois’ $11.1 million anti-smoking message with a $400 million campaign touting the cool, the panache, the joys of smoking.

Big Tobacco’s marketing success this past year in Illinois can be measured in the 14 percent of Illinois high school students who smoke and the 18 percent of Illinois adults who smoke and the 18,300 Illinois smoking deaths and the $5.49 billion in Illinois health care costs.

But that was last year. There’s no budget, so no one can judge us now.

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Can’t match Illinois on anti-tobacco spending."