Foundation's money would serve Ohio best by fighting tobacco

During the more than 25 years that I smoked, the New Year always presented an opportunity to begin anew and try to be smoke-free. Like many smokers, I struggled before finally quitting for good -- but the New Year always gave me the resolve to try again.

I am sure that many of Ohio's 1.8 million smokers looked forward to Jan. 1, 2010 with that same determination to kick their deadly addiction once and for all. Unfortunately, a decision issued on New Year's Eve by the Franklin County Court of Appeals made this prospect much more difficult.

On that afternoon, the court reversed a lower court's order that had prevented the state of Ohio from dissolving the endowment of the Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation. This was the latest development in an almost two-year legal battle that has been waged by the public health organization I head, Legacy, and two former Ohio smokers, to ensure that funds set aside by the Ohio legislature for tobacco-control programs are spent on their intended, life-saving purpose.

Ten years ago, the state of Ohio settled legal claims it had brought against the major tobacco companies to recover tobacco-related health-care costs. The state legislature wisely decided to set aside a portion of the billions from the settlement for programs and services aimed at reducing the smoking rate in Ohio, which then stood at 26.2 percent. To ensure that the funds were protected from future politicians tempted to spend them on other priorities, the legislature created a special organization, the Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation, outside the state bureaucracy and placed the money to operate the foundation into a special endowment outside the state treasury.