Maine has been a leader in using Master Tobacco Settlement Funds (not tax dollars) to help reduce tobacco use since 2001. The current budget proposal eliminates funding for the 27 local Healthy Maine Partnerships (HMP) with contracts from Maine DHHS/ CDC for specific local tobacco efforts and healthy eating, physical activity and substance abuse prevention. Access Health is our local HMP.

The Sagadahoc Board of Health wants you to know there are proven ways to reduce tobacco’s devastating effects. Focusing on preventing youth tobacco use is important. Reducing barriers to quitting tobacco when people are ready to quit is also a goal. Most people try seven or more times before they are successful. Preventing and quitting tobacco uses are cost effective uses of health dollars.

The 50th Anniversary U. S. Surgeon General’s Report was released in 2014 — 50 years of research on preventing and treating tobacco. You’d think tobacco use should be under control in 50 years. Well, tobacco companies have also been doing research and very effective advertising — about $ 40.9 million worth in Maine last year — and marketing new nicotine products, like e-cigarettes. Nicotine is compared to heroin for level of addictive properties, hooking our young people in a few weeks of use.

We know coordinated efforts are needed to effectively protect people from both health and economic costs of tobacco related diseases. The CDC Office on Smoking or Health identifies five key elements that, in combination, have the biggest impact on reducing tobacco’s impacts. Maine’s local HMPs have very important roles in ensuring all elements of tobacco prevention are occurring in every community in Maine.

1) State and local policies concerning tobacco- free places protect kids, older adults, and others from smoke. Local work resulted in Bath’s tobacco-free parks and stronger school policies.

2) Media, like TV ads, provide education. HMPs are uniquely positioned to increase local media, including the number of times a message is heard. Access Health has placed messages on local cable television, in lesson plans for health teachers, in Facebook ads, at local libraries, and face to face at community events. Why is local media important? Research tells us to be effective, messages need to be viewed multiple times, from trustworthy sources.

3) Quit supports are key; the Maine Tobacco Helpline has helped lots of Mainer’s quit. Primary care and specialty providers refer their patients to Helpline for counseling from highly trained Tobacco Treatment Specialists. About 70 percent 80 percent of all Maine smokers report they want to quit, so more quit supports are needed in the community. The HMP workplans, created and overseen by the Maine CDC, could focus on helping to create more treatment access for populations with higher tobacco use.

4) Continued research and evaluation about how to reduce tobacco use are needed so we know what works, what is changing, etc. We are just learning that school age youth are using e- cigarettes more than they are smoking, thanks to the advertising by big tobacco.

5) Finally, we need the state’s health structure in place to coordinate, guide, and fund all this work. We need people at the Maine CDC who are experts in tobacco control, public health nurses working in the community, social service/ behavioral health agencies that host quit groups and all 27 local HMPs, so that we are served by local public health, and every town in Maine is linked to a local HMP.

Mainers deserve to have local experts to translate the national and state efforts and research to meet local needs. The Sagadahoc Board of Health partners with Access Health to do this for the people in our communities.

We are concerned with the local impact of HMP cuts, and urge our local legislators and community members to share their concern, and help us protect local public health.

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Joanne Joy is the chairperson of the Sagadahoc Board of Health. She lives in Bowdoinham.