August 4 , 2005
Norman – The ways tobacco industry lobbying has influenced state lawmaking and impacted public health are explored in a just published groundbreaking report, “From Industry Dominance to Legislative Progress: The Political and Public Health Struggle of Tobacco Control in Oklahoma.” The report, published by two University of Oklahoma researchers, is part of a two-year research project for the American Heart Association.
College of Arts and Sciences Department of Political Science professor Michael Givel and graduate research assistant Andrew Spivak completed the 99-page report using internal tobacco company documents, ethics commission records of tobacco donations to state lawmakers, state agency documents, and interviews with public health leaders and state officials, including Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson.
Oklahoma’s 2002 per capita cigarette sales were 27 percent higher than the national average and over 26 percent of Oklahomans identified themselves as cigarette smokers in 2004, compared to the 23 percent national average. The toll of smoking in Oklahoma is consequently staggering: 5,700 adults in Oklahoma die from tobacco-related illness annually; 9,100 new minors become regular smokers each year; and Oklahoma’s costs of health care for tobacco related illness are about $908 million per year.
Despite the severe public health record, tobacco industry influence in the state Legislature assured that organizations such as the Oklahoma Alliance on Health or Tobacco and the Oklahoma State Department of Health achieved very little progress in tobacco control between 1985 and 2001. Tobacco industry dominance was present in such key areas as clean indoor air legislation until 2002; tobacco taxes, until the passage of State Question 713 in November 2004; and youth access, despite the passage of a new 2004 bill that will buttress youth access restrictions, but contains lax enforcement.
According to the authors, a major catalyst for strengthening the effectiveness of tobacco control advocacy was the arrival in 2001 of Dr. Leslie Beitsch as the new Oklahoma Health Commissioner; Beitsch has led efforts to eliminate smoking in public places and workplaces, strengthen youth access restrictions, and raise the cigarette tax to help pay for Medicaid expenditures, smoking prevention and cessation programs.
Beitsch’s public relations style, which has been described as brash and outspoken, elicited conflict with lawmakers. Nonetheless, he was able to successfully promote the Oklahoma State Board of Health’s administrative rules in 2002, requiring clean indoor-air in all public places and workplaces, including restaurants. The controversy incited by the rules’ enactment precipitated a successful clean indoor-air bill in the 2003 Legislature. By March 2006, all restaurants will have to either go completely smoke-free or completely enclose their smoking sections with separate ventilation.
View Complete Report. Must have Adobe Acrobat. |
