Fla. Reflects on Landmark Tobacco Case

Source from:  BY PAUL FLEMMING FLORIDA TODAY CAPITAL BUREAU 08/22/2007

Ten years on from Florida's landmark tobacco settlement, key players in that $13 billion deal Tuesday reflected on the achievement, lauded current efforts and insisted that much work remains.' "It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since the epic battle my father and General Butterworth fought," said Bud Chiles, former Gov. Lawton Chiles son, at a news conference. Former Attorney General Bob Butterworth -- and current Department of Children and Families secretary -- was among those who gathered to recall the tobacco wars in the Legislature and the courts. Butterworth said Chiles sought three outcomes: "First off, hands off our children" with restrictions on advertising and sales. "Be honest about your product," its addictive characteristics and health consequences. "We wanted money back for the system" to pay for increased state health care costs attributable to smoking. Chiles and state Sen. W.D. Childers led the late-night legislative maneuver that passed the bill to allow the state to sue tobacco companies. The legislation, putting the state in favorable position, led to the 1997 settlement during jury selection in the lawsuit. Subsequently, the tobacco companies made a sweeping, global settlement with 46 states that halted much advertising, required anti-smoking campaigns and directed payments to states by the companies. The Florida Department of Health, in a study last year, found 4.5 percent of high school students were frequent smokers, down from 13.3 percent in 1998, which advocates attributed to programs funded by the tobacco settlement. There remain 3.1 million adult smokers in the state. "We must make more resources available to help these smokers who want to break this addiction," said Charles Mahan, dean emeritus of the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida. Chiles' widow, Rhea Chiles, spoke by telephone to recall the battle her husband waged, and the success of the advertising campaigns that followed. Those depended on involving youth to create the campaign. "Young people know how to communicate with young people," Rhea Chiles said. The state takes in more than $350 million a year from tobacco companies as part of its 1997 settlement with the state in a lawsuit to recoup the health care costs associated with smoking. In November 2006, voters approved a constitutional amendment that requires 15 percent of annual proceeds from settlement payments go to youth anti-smoking efforts. This year, as a result, the legislature approved $58 million for the programs, funding that had diminished to $1 million before the amendment passed. Adrian Abner, as a 12-year-old schoolboy from Blountstown in 1997, rode to Tallahassee to meet with Chiles and others to discuss anti-smoking efforts. Abner, now a Florida A&M University graduate, eventually became chairman of the Students Working Against Tobacco, the program the settlement funded to lead the campaign against youth smoking. "The drop in youth smoking numbers is a direct result of that," Abner said. Enditem