Recently, a Los Angeles Times editorial took up Mathews' view that Proposition 29 should lose because it requires the revenue to be spent on cancer and research, not go to the state's general fund. Los Angeles City Hall gadfly John Walsh responded with a colorful, all-caps missive declaring: "TWO-PACK-A-DAY SAM ZELL ... BLOWS SMOKE UP L.A. TIMES EDITORIAL WRITERS' ASSES TO FORCE A NO ON 29 EDITORIAL OUT OF THEM."
Glantz says those focused on where the money goes miss the point of Proposition 29: It was never meant to save Brown and the Legislature from the state's yawning $16 billion deficit. It's intended to make smoking so expensive that many people quit or never start, thus saving lives.
ILLUSTRATION BY JARED BOGGESS
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The Centers for Disease Control says tobacco-related fatalities outnumber deaths from alcohol, illegal drugs, murders, suicides, fires and AIDS combined. The Cancer Society's Knox says by far the most effective way to prevent kids from starting is "by raising the price."
Joel Fox, an antitax advocate and president of the Small Business Action Committee, dismisses this argument as the latest effort to enact "nanny state" rules legislating behavior. "They are trying to establish their moral standards by raising this tax, making it more difficult to purchase something."
Glantz contends that legislating human behavior, in this case, works. He estimates that within five years of the measure's passage, California's already low smoking rate would drop three points to 8.5 percent (the national average is around 20 percent), saving the state up to $32 billion in medical costs, including more than $10 billion saved by state government.
He sees the large sums of cash that Proposition 29 would raise for research and antismoking programs as a bonus. "The fact is," Glantz says, "if you took all the money out and put it in a pile and burned it, it would still be a good thing to do."
