DATE

To the Editor

Without question, Illinois faces an uphill battle to balance the budget and cure our financial ills. However, we can't sacrifice Illinois' long-term physical health for short-term fiscal health. The budget needs long-term solutions, not a quick fix from bonds financed by the state's share of the Master Settlement Agreement with the tobacco industry.

The 4,800 members of the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians implore Governor Blagojevich and the General Assembly to preserve the MSA payment structure. Wisconsin's $5.9 billion was reduced to only $1.3 billion, less than 25 cents on the dollar. Even worse, a 25-year revenue stream just went up in smoke to balance the state budget, leaving any future tobacco prevention efforts without a clear funding source. Missouri said good-bye to 30 percent of their settlement and may dump even more for a short-term solution to a long-range budget problem. At the same time, Missouri allocates nothing for tobacco prevention programming in FY 2003.

Illinois receives around $300 million annually from its settlement with the four major tobacco companies as part of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). This annual payment gives Illinois an unprecedented opportunity to reduce the toll tobacco use takes in lives and dollars. Currently that toll is huge; $1.2 billion of state Medicaid dollars were spent treating tobacco-caused illnesses in 2002 alone.

I see the devastating effects of tobacco use every day in my patients. As a family physician treating patients of all ages and backgrounds, I see firsthand how widespread tobacco use is in our state. Tobacco knows no age or language barriers, and our tobacco prevention and cessation efforts must be just as far reaching.

Using tobacco settlement funds to plug the budget gaps means our court fight against the tobacco industry will become a loss for our state. In the meantime we'll see 34,000 of our kids take up smoking, and 18,400 more of our friends and family dying of tobacco related illness every year.

Dedicating a fraction of the incoming MSA funds in coordinated tobacco prevention and cessation programs will guarantee that our state realizes maximum gain from the settlement for the reasons we fought the tobacco industry in the first place.

For readers who want to quit smoking and need help, Illinois' toll-free Tobacco QuitLine is 1-866-QUIT-YES (784-8937). Talk to your primary care physician about ways to stop using tobacco.

Sincerely,

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