N.Y. anti-smoking efforts get mixed grades

New York has received mixed grades in the American Lung Association's report card on tobacco control, the group announced Wednesday.

The state got two Fs for its failure to provide enough funding for tobacco-control efforts and for less-than-lukewarm support for smoking cessation programs.

Michael Seilback, a vice president of the lung association in Happauge, said an estimated 2.3 million New Yorkers are smokers.

But the state received As, according to the report released at a news briefing Wednesday, for imposing high taxes on tobacco products and enforcing smoke-free air laws.

The association's chief executive, Jeff Seyler, said New York took important steps to expand tobacco-cessation counseling offered to Medicaid recipients and laws to protect more New Yorkers from secondhand smoke.

But, he added, the state took several major steps backward.

"It's disappointing that just days before the release of this report giving New York a failing grade for inadequately funding its tobacco control program, the governor proposes further cutting the program by $5 million," Seyler said.

Susan Kennedy, director of the Tobacco Action Coalition of Long Island, a community organization, said her group, whose programs help stop smoking among youngsters, lost $100,000 last year, a direct result of state cutbacks.

"Big tobacco is spending $1.1 million a day to encourage our kids to smoke," Kennedy said, noting that without funding she and her team have no way to counter subtle and overt tobacco-industry messages.

Kennedy said budget cutbacks are having an impact on other services offered Long Islanders as well.

"Cuts have also eliminated our ability to develop paid media to promote the New York State Smokers' Quitline and local cessation resources available to all residents," she said.

"The bottom line is that these cuts are negatively impacting our ability to help smokers quit," Kennedy said.