Smoke Free Virginia Now

It’s hard to believe, but the Virginia General Assembly heads back into session in just 62 days. Now that the presidential election is over, the Smoke Free Virginia Now campaign is ramping up to make 2009 the year Virginia goes smoke-free.

I wanted to point out an editorial written by Ricky Fulcher, Chair of the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation, which can be found in the 2008 General Assembly wrap-up edition of the The Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest. Titled, “Secondhand Smoke Deserves First-Rate Attention,” the editorial makes the case that Virginia’s tobacco heritage should not stand in the way of progress toward tobacco control:

However, despite overwhelming medical evidence that secondhand smoke is harmful to public health, the General Assembly has been slow to place further restrictions on smoking. Their reluctance is probably based on fear of economic harm to tobacco-related industries and restaurant revenues. However, smoking-related illnesses place a massive financial onus on Virginia’s government coffers, too. Our state government pays $401 million annually in Medicaid costs from smoking, and the average Virginia family pays $576 annually in state
and federal taxes for these types of smoking-related government expenditures

The entire editorial is well worth a read.