Cut health costs, spur economy, cure cancer

Smoking costs California taxpayers $9 billion every year in health care costs, and much more in lost productivity. This translates into smoking-caused costs of $15 per pack of cigarettes. And yet, at just 87 cents per pack, California’s tobacco tax is one of the lowest in the nation.

That doesn’t make sense and, this June, we’ll have the chance to do something about it.

On June 5, Californians will have the opportunity to pass Proposition 29, the California Cancer Research Act. By adding $1 tax per pack of cigarettes and equivalent tax on other tobacco products, Prop. 29 will save an estimated 104,500 lives from premature smoking-caused deaths, prevent 228,700 children from becoming adult smokers and save Californian taxpayers an estimated $5.1 billion in long-term health costs from declines in smoking.

What’s more, passage of Prop. 29 will generate $735 million per year in total revenue. This money will be used to fund lifesaving research on cancer and other tobacco-related diseases and to support smoking cessation and prevention programs. To assure these resources are invested responsibly, the proposition will create a nine-member Citizen’s Oversight Committee made up of scientists, doctors and cancer survivors.

Opponents of Prop. 29 (namely Big Tobacco) call Prop. 29 “wasteful spending.” We are certain that the one in two Californians who will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives would disagree. Passing Prop. 29 will allow California’s world-renowned universities, research institutes, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, medical doctors and advocacy groups like the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association to accelerate the fight against cancer and other smoking-related diseases. Cancer and heart disease are the leading causes of death in California.

We are in the midst of a transformative decade in cancer research and in translating our research advances to patient benefit. Researchers around the state will use revenue from Prop. 29 to unlock the secrets of how cancer develops and spreads, so we can design better diagnostics and therapeutics. Prop. 29 will help us detect cancer earlier, treat tumors more effectively and ultimately save more lives.

In addition to saving lives and lowering health care costs, passage of Prop 29 will help stimulate the state’s economy by creating and saving jobs in California. The biotechnology industry has been a shining example of stability and growth in our state over the past several decades, and is an area we should be turning to now to help our state recover from economic decline.

Today, California is home to several of the most vibrant life-science research clusters in the world, including 10 of the country’s 66 NCI-designated cancer centers (more than any other state in the nation). The San Francisco Bay Area boasts the oldest and largest biomedical cluster in California and is a world leader in biotechnology. San Diego is known for its biopharmaceutical and medical diagnostics companies, while Orange County has a reputation for medical device inventions and Los Angeles is the place for cutting-edge cancer research and patient care.

As of 2009, the biotechnology industry employed nearly 270,000 Californians. And that number jumps to more than 783,000 jobs when we include everyone employed in academic research, biopharmaceuticals, diagnostics, medical devices, laboratory services and other supporting industries.