CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Supporters of legislation addressing tobacco and vaping cessation and prevention programs in West Virginia, the Tobacco Use Cessation Initiative, are calling on Governor Jim Justice to sign the bill into law and add funding for it.
HB 4494, in its final passage form from the state Senate and state House of Delegates, creates a task force to meet quarterly to recommend and monitor the establishment and management of programs to reduce tobacco and e-cigarette use statewide.
However, there’s no money designated for those programs in the bill.
Juliana Frederick Curry, government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said the legislation is a starting point.
“Ultimately, what it allows us to do is to take that first step to bring the right people to the table to start working on a plan, but without the funding, we can’t put the plan into action,” Frederick Curry said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended $27 million in funding to get people to quit tobacco and e-cigarette use in West Virginia or not to start at all.
Last year, about $500,000 in general revenue funding was allocated in the health lifestyles budget line item covering both tobacco and obesity.
This year, Frederick Curry said that amount would be lower with separate funding needed for the task force to be chaired by the commissioner for the Bureau for Public Health in the state Department of Health and Human Resources or a designee.
A report from the DHHR released in January showed one in three, or 35.7 percent, of West Virginia’s high school students reported current use of e-cigarettes.
“Right now, we’re in the middle of an e-cigarette epidemic in the state. There’s a really strong need to get the education to our youth about the dangers of these products,” Frederick Curry said.
Additionally, West Virginia has regularly had one of the highest adult smoking rates in the entire United States.
Keys sponsors of this year’s bill included Delegate Daryl Cowles (R-Morgan, 58) and Delegate Mick Bates (D-Raleigh, 30).
In addition to creating the task force, the original bill drew funding from 25 percent of the prior year’s interest earnings from the state’s Rainy Day Fund B where tobacco settlement money was located.
“Tobacco cessation used to be funded at $5.7 million (a year) but during the budget crunch we have whittled that away to next to nothing,” Delegate Cowles argued at one point.
With the funding, the bill was approved in the House of Delegates with a 90-10 vote on Feb. 26.
The money was removed in the Senate Finance Committee and was not restored prior to the close of the 2020 Regular Legislative Session on Saturday night.
“We know there is support and we know a lot of people in the Legislature understand the importance of these programs and we’re hoping the Governor sees that too and that we might receive funding before next year,” Frederick Curry told MetroNews.
“If not, we will come back and work with these efforts again because we know how important it is to the state.”