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Funding for Tobacco Control Question of the Month This month's question focuses on the amount of resources devoted to tobacco control in your countries. Your answers will highlight the discrepancies between countries and allow us to draw a contrast with tobacco industry expenditures on marketing and promotion. Question: How much money is spent per capita on tobacco control in your country, state, or community? For many countries this may be a tough question to answer*. For others, where there are little or no resources for tobacco control, it should be easier. Try to be as accurate as possible. List all government and non-governmental programs related to tobacco control and their annual budgets**. Remember to cite your sources. Add up the budgets for a grand total. Divide by the estimated population for the appropriate year. In order to make this figure more meaningful, you might compare it to: * If the answer to this question is too difficult to calculate, simply make a list of all the government agencies and types of groups (education, medical, youth, environment etc) that are involved in tobacco control in your area. Provide a brief description of what they do. ** For an example, see the Congressional Research Service Report for Congress 97-64: Tobacco-Related Activities and Programs in the Federal Government: A Summary http://www.cnie.org/nle/ag-50.html *** The Federal Trade Commission reports that tobacco companies spent
$8.24 billion on advertising and promotions in the U.S. in 1999. In other
words, $30.33 for every woman, man, and child (1)! This is equivalent
to 9.3 packs of cigarettes (2). |