Legislation : Strategic Contribution Resolution

North Dakota Public Health Association Resolution to Sustain the Strategic Contribution Funding, as provided by passage of Initiated Measure #3 in 2008, for North Dakota’s Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy

WHEREAS tobacco use in North Dakota (still the leading preventable cause of death) imposes staggering health and economic burdens, with 877 North Dakotans dying each year from their own smoking; 11,000 North Dakota under-18 kids projected to die prematurely due to smoking; smoking-caused direct-healthcare costs amounting to $247 million each year; and each North Dakota household paying $567 per year in state & federal taxes for smoking-caused government expenditures; and

WHEREAS despite having already received $200 MILLION in “original” Tobacco Master Settlement payments (plus approximately $21 million collected per year in tobacco taxes), North Dakota had failed to fund a comprehensive tobacco prevention/cessation program at even the minimum level recommended by the CDC until the 2008 passage of Measure 3; and

WHEREAS on April 15, 2008, North Dakota began receiving an ADDITIONAL, separate “Strategic Contribution Fund payment” of approximately $13 million per year, which is sizable only because the ND Attorney General’s office worked tirelessly and provided strong national leadership to negotiate the 1998 Master Settlement specifically for the purpose of reducing the death and disease caused by tobacco use in ND; and

WHEREAS on Nov. 4, 2008, North Dakota voters approved Initiated Measure # 3 to allocate the state’s “Strategic Contribution Fund payment” to a Best Practices tobacco prevention program fully funded at the CDC recommended level ($9.3 million a year); and

WHEREAS in order to optimally succeed in reducing tobacco-caused death and disease, ND’s program “must be sustained over a long period of time” and “must be free and clear of political and tobacco-industry influence;” and

WHEREAS voters on Nov. 4, 2008 deliberately created the new Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy’s (“Center”) independent governing committee in order to insulate the program from politics and the tobacco lobby; and

WHEREAS because the Center has one single focus (tobacco control), it is much less subject to harmful pressures that arise when an agency is promoting multiple, differing agendas; and

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that, in keeping with ND voters’ wishes as expressed on Nov. 4, 2008, and in keeping with the originally-stated purpose of ND’s Tobacco Settlement negotiations, North Dakota’s Strategic Contribution Fund payments should continue to be invested in the new Center’s “Saving Lives-Saving Money: ND’s Comprehensive State Plan to Prevent and Reduce Tobacco Use, 2009-2014.”

Adopted this 7th day of June 2010.

Principal Sources:

ND Dept of Health Tobacco Facts-July 2009 (www.ndhealth.gov/tobacco);
CDC Data Highlights 2006;
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets (Feb.15, 2010), and “Essential Elements of a Comprehensive State Tobacco Prevention Program” (May 12, 2008);
US Attorneys General Master Settlement Agreement (www.naag.org/backpages/naag/tobacco/msa);
CDC's Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs—2007