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.
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