Tobacco.org

Windfall creates welcome problem 

With so much cash on the horizon, lawmakers must decide whether to take their millions and create new health programs, provide tax cuts, or launch antismoking campaigns, among other ideas.

''When you have that kind of money coming in and have 150 legislators and a governor, you're going to get 151 proposals,'' said Paul S. Kelly, Rhode Island's Senate majority leader. . . And then there are the antismoking activists who look with dismay at Macera, Menino, and others for wanting to use the money for anything other than health care and tobacco control. Even though the states are legally free to spend the money as they wish, the American Cancer Society, the Heart Association, and the American Lung Association argue it should be used to help smokers quit and to prevent teenagers from taking up the habit.

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