Stimulus Program Spends $1.37 Million to Encourage Smokers to Quit

The Ohio Department of Health is spending $1.37 million in federal stimulus funds to convince Ohio smokers to quit.

The funding comes from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which awarded Ohio the funding as part of a $650 million push to reduce tobacco use and obesity. Congress authorized the spending via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The bulk of the funding, approximately $959,000, is being spent to create an online smoking cessation program, to launch a new website, to buy more nicotine patches, and to enhance Ohio's telephone quit line, 1-800-QUIT-NOW. An additional $410,000 is directed toward an advertising campaign to encourage smokers to quit.

"If we can help additional Ohioans to quit the use of tobacco we will have savings in the area of health care," said Mari-jean Siehl, program chief for the Ohio Department of Health.

Ohio taxpayers spend $1.4 billion each year on tobacco-related Medicaid costs. Ohio businesses lose $4.8 billion a year in work productivity because of tobacco-related illness.

According to ODH, two million Ohioans use tobacco products, including Sandra Barnes, who started smoking 30 years ago.

"I'm trying to quit now. It's hard," Barnes said.

The ad campaign, called "Dear Me", is borrowed from the State of Washington and will run on radio in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Youngstown. Television ads will launch later this year. Stimulus money also is buying billboards and pay convenience stores to hang posters for the campaign.

"I hope that makes some of us stop smoking, me too," Barnes said.

NBC 4 asked Siehl if this effort will stimulate the economy in the short term.

"We did not actually fund any positions for it, but again we were able to do a media campaign and enhance our existing quit line tools," Siehl said. "We know that if we can't tell people about the resources and the tools that we have for them they aren't going to be able to utilize them."

CDC spokesperson Joe Quimby said via email, "Money spent in advertising and making the public aware does employ people in the advertising and production business in addition to people who work at television, print and radio media outlets."

Two years ago, state lawmakers shut down the Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation in order to spend state tobacco settlement money elsewhere.

Asked why the state has not prioritized such spending before federal stimulus funds became available, Siehl said the state budget picture did not allow for it.

"You know that we do have quite a bit of a budget crisis in government in Ohio, as do many other states right now," Siehl said. "And so we have to juggle a number of very key initiatives and important programs and determinations have to be made by both the legislature and the governor as to what must be served first and how those dollars should be allocated. There are a number of competing priorities and tobacco prevention and cessation is just one of those."

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