MS Attorney Gen. Accuses CO of Misusing Tobacco Settlement Money [08/28-2]
Excerpts from: Mississippi official accuses Colorado of misusing tobacco
money
Associated
Press [08/28/03]
Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore on Wednesday accused Colorado and several
other states of misusing millions of dollars won from tobacco companies in 1998.
Moore led the states in suing some of the nation's largest tobacco companies
and won a $240 billion settlement. Colorado has used much of its $370 million
share of the court settlement to reduce budget deficits.
The money states get from tobacco sales every year should be used for health care
and tobacco prevention programs, he said. But instead, ''very few states are spending
it well.''
Moore asked students to tell their political leaders to reroute the tobacco
money to tobacco-cessation projects. He also urged students to talk to their
peers about the dangers of tobacco, saying teens often listen more closely to
other kids than they do adults.
But Moore got his audience's attention when he described the fear of losing
his father, who almost died of a stroke after 40 years of smoking.
''The key to the tobacco issue is to make it real.''
Tobacco use killed 455,000 people last year, he said, compared with 25,000
deaths from illegal drugs and 100,000 from alcohol.
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