Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop '37 recently appeared before the New Hampshire state legislature to promote a new bill that would increase state funding for smoking prevention programs.
New Hampshire currently receives $46 million every year from a national settlement against the tobacco companies, but only $1.3 million of that money is reserved for funding smoking-prevention programs or to treat addicts. According to both Koop and sponsor of the bill James Pilliod, a Republican, this percentage is too low.
Currently, money from the tobacco settlement can be used at the legislature's discretion. In the past few years, this money has been used to make up for shortfalls in education spending, according to Pilliod.
While all 50 states receive money from lawsuits against tobacco companies, currently only Massachusetts, Mississippi and California spend all of it on anti-smoking programs.
Both Pilliod and Koop said that New Hampshire has a higher percentage of smokers than most states, making it especially important that New Hampshire spend additional money on smoking prevention programs.
Koop attributed these high rates of smoking to New Hampshire's location and "fundamental culture."
"If you go to high school in New Hampshire and don't attend college, there's really no place for social life other than in bars in most towns, and in bars there's really nothing to do besides smoke and drink alcohol," he said.
Koop defended the general success of smoking prevention, but he noted that certain programs work better than others.
"It's not effective to go to a kid's school and show a bunch of pictures of black lungs," he said. "It's something that won't happen to them for another 40 years."
It is much more helpful, however, to show teenagers how tobacco companies use advertising to convince minors to smoke, Koop said.
"Kids hate to be known as suckers," he said.
Both Pilliod and Koop expressed doubts that the bill would pass. Pilliod said that the bill was in trouble due to concerns about balancing the New Hampshire budget, as the money from the settlement will likely be used again to fund the education budget.
He said that while New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen has generally been in favor of funding smoking prevention programs, she is also "in favor of not running a deficit in an election year."
Pillio also said that no members of the legislature specifically criticized the bill itself. Some members of the Finance Committee even suggested to him that he reappear the following year with the same bill, he said.
"It's as though everyone is curious as to how to escape their moral obligation," he said.
Koop declined to speculate on whether or not the bill would pass, but he did say that he "wouldn't make a bet on it in the streets of Concord."
He added that the members of the House of Representatives' finance committee had been respectful and listened attentively to the points he had made.
