For Immediate Release: 10/23/02
For More Information Contact: David Ahrens: 608-265-6386

A 100-page study issued by the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center finds that the tobacco industry has had long-standing and extensive influence over Wisconsin’s public health policies. The tobacco industry’s heavy influence over critical legislative issues was accomplished largely through the efforts of tobacco companies and the strategic use the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, Grocers Association, Tavern League and Convenience Stores.

The policies promoted by the tobacco industry may have lead Wisconsin to have:

· Among the highest rates of youth smoking in the nation

· The highest rate of illegal tobacco sales to youth in the nation

· Higher than expected number of smokers and cigarette consumption given the state’s socio-economic characteristics.

· Higher than average exposure to secondhand smoke in workplaces compared to the rest of the nation.

To prepare the report the UW’s Monitoring and Evaluation Program examined over 1000 previously secret documents of the tobacco industry as well as news archives and policy reports. These documents included inter-industry memos describing strategies to defeat local and state efforts to reduce tobacco use.

Analysts found that Philip Morris is the dominant tobacco corporation in Wisconsin spending $1.9 million in the last three legislative sessions on lobbying and are among the heaviest contributors to political campaigns. The tobacco industry spent $7.2 million lobbying the legislature in the period 1997-2002. The report documents activities of the tobacco industry and its key allies as they block communities’ initiatives for smoke free public places and restrict the sale of cigarettes to children.

For over thirty years, the tobacco industry’s policy agenda has four major parts:

· Keep cigarette taxes low relative to price.

· Limit regulation and enforcement of laws prohibiting sale of cigarettes to youth

· Oppose clean indoor air ordinances and policies

· Preempt local authority to regulate cigarettes.

The complete report can be found at the website: http://www.medsch.wisc.edu/mep/