As the Alabama Legislature convenes for its 2007 session, we are writing to urge that you make it a priority to combat tobacco use by adequately funding programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. This need is especially urgent in light of recent headlines reminding us that the tobacco industry continues to do everything it can to addict children and prevent smokers from quitting. Tobacco use continues to take a huge toll on our state in health, lives and health care costs, so it is imperative that our leaders counter the harmful actions of the tobacco industry by supporting effective measures to reduce smoking.

Recent months have brought headline after headline about the tobacco industry's continued wrongdoing:

- In August, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler found the major cigarette manufacturers guilty of violating the nation's civil racketeering laws. She found that the cigarette companies have defrauded the American people by lying for decades about the health risks of smoking and their marketing to children. Most alarmingly, she found that this wrongdoing continues today: "Their continuing conduct misleads consumers in order to maximize Defendants' revenues by recruiting new smokers (the majority of whom are under the age of 18), preventing current smokers from quitting, and thereby sustaining the industry."

- Later in August, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released a study finding that cigarette manufacturers secretly and significantly increased the levels of nicotine in cigarette smoke between 1998 and 2004. This study is powerful evidence that the tobacco companies will stop at nothing to keep smokers addicted and addict a new generation of smokers.

- The tobacco companies spend a record $15.4 billion a year - more than $42 million a day - to market their deadly and addictive products in the United States, often in ways that appeal to kids. This represents a nearly 125 percent increase since 1998, when they agreed to stop targeting kids as part of the 1998 state tobacco settlement. One of their latest ploys to entice kids is the marketing of candy and fruit-flavored cigarettes. In Alabama, the tobacco companies spend $282.1 MILLION a year on marketing.

These actions show why it is so important that Alabama adequately fund programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit, as our leaders promised to do at the time of the 1998 tobacco settlement. Alabama collects $256.7 million a year in tobacco-generated revenue from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but it only spends $682,000 a year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs. That amounts to only 2.6 percent of the minimum amount of $26.7 million recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Our state already collects more than enough tobacco-generated revenue to fund a tobacco prevention and cessation program at CDC-recommended levels. But we will have even more tobacco-generated revenue beginning in 2008. That is when the states that were part of the 1998 tobacco settlement (called the Master Settlement Agreement, or MSA) will begin receiving annual bonus settlement payments totaling about $900 million each year. The bonus payments are mandated by the terms of the settlement and will continue for at least 10 years. Alabama's share of the bonus payments will be about $8.3 million a year.

These payments will provide states with a critical second chance to do what the vast majority of them have failed to do so far - keep the promise of the tobacco settlement to fund tobacco prevention and cessation programs. Because these bonus payments start in April 2008 during the states' fiscal year 2008, legislators and governors will be making decisions regarding the expenditure of these additional funds in the 2007 legislative sessions. You can find our more about these bonus payments at www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0286.pdf.

It is important that Alabama act this year to increase funding for tobacco prevention both because of the tobacco companies' wrongdoing and because tobacco use continues to take a huge toll on our state. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in Alabama, claiming more than 7,400 lives and costing the state $1.49 BILLION in health care bills each year. Government expenditures related to tobacco amount to a hidden tax of $522 on every Alabama household. In addition, 24.4 percent of Alabama high school students smoke, and 14,500 more kids because regular smokers every year.

We know tobacco prevention works. The best state tobacco prevention programs have reduced youth smoking rates by 60 percent or more in just a few short years. The best programs have also been shown to save up to $3 in health care costs for every dollar spent.

Protecting the health of our children and families against tobacco-caused addiction and disease is a worthwhile goal, and it's within our reach through proper use of tobacco settlement money. We urge you to act this year to adequately fund a tobacco prevention and cessation program in Alabama. This is a critical step that will improve Alabama's health for generations to come.