CIGARETTE FIRMS OUTSPEND STATE

Fewer people quit as tobacco-control program is gutted

A state program that prodded millions of Californians to quit smoking has
lost its punch, according to a new medical study, which warned that tobacco
marketing and politics may be to blame.

California smoking rates, which were plunging in the first four years after
the state's 25-cent-a-pack tobacco tax took effect, pulled out of their
dive in 1994 -- after cigarette makers increased advertising and state
lawmakers cut tobacco-control spending by 40 percent.

``The slowing of the decline in smoking in recent years may well be a
result of . . . political counterstrategies by the tobacco industry,''
wrote researchers from the University of California at San Diego in today's
Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study indicates that the slowdown in the decline of smoking in
California coincided with attempts by the tobacco industry to step up
lobbying and advertising.

The study found that tobacco advertising in California jumped 20 percent
after 1993, to $20 per year for every man, woman and child in the state. At
the same time, the state Legislature, at the urging of the Wilson
administration, cut spending on tobacco-control programs by 40 percent, to
$2 per capita annually.

``The tobacco industry outspent the program by nearly 10 to one,'' said
John Pierce, a UC San Diego epidemiologist whose team has conducted three
major surveys documenting the progress of California's tobacco-control
effort since 1990.

Anti-tobacco activists contend that the UC San Diego researchers paid a
price for the latest critique: In June the California Department of Health
Services cut off further funding of their work.

``We were terminated,'' said Pierce.

``John Pierce seems to have an uncanny ability to come up with results the
governor doesn't like,'' said Stanton Glantz, a University of California at
San Francisco professor and well-known tobacco industry foe. ``His latest
report shows the administration has succeeded in wrecking the program. His
reward for that is a bullet through his head.''

Dr. Donald Lyman, chief of the Division of Chronic Disease and Injury
Control, said he made the decision not to renew Pierce's grant without any
political interference. ``If you hire a guy to paint the house, and he
shows up late and insults the wife, are you going to hire him again?'' he
said. Lyman said that Pierce was ``just a difficult guy to work with,'' and
that his department was upset with the ``timeliness'' of the report and
``abusive language'' when dealing with Pierce. The state also differed with
the UC San Diego team on several technical issues and only released the
report this summer after a panel of experts reviewed the work and concluded
that Pierce's approach was valid.

Although state officials are prickly over sections of Pierce's report that
suggest the tobacco-control program is no longer working, they stress that
the same survey found much in California's tobacco-control efforts to be
proud of.

Among the successes:

- -- The portion of California ``indoor'' workers exposed to secondhand smoke
fell 60 percent between 1990 and 1996, from 29 percent of the workforce to
12 percent.

- -- The percentage of adults who smoke in California fell from 22.2 percent
in 1990 to 18.1 percent in 1996.

``The truth is, we are still doing better than anyone else,'' said Lyman.
Pierce said that the latest medical journal study couches the findings in
less diplomatic language than found in the official state report. ``We are
basically saying, `You've lost it.' The programs have lost their
effectiveness in discouraging smoking in California,'' said Pierce.

Both the official state version and the Pierce study published today divide
California's tobacco-control efforts into two periods. In 1993, the rate of
tobacco consumption was falling 52 percent faster than in 1989, when the
tobacco tax became effective. But by 1996, the rate of decline had slowed
by more than two-thirds.

1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A15

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski