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Finding Two Nickels and a Home
Outright's New Year Resolution
Outright's New Year Resolution
by
Lluvia Mulvaney-Stanak
The
2006 Tobacco Tax Resolution is reproduced below. This resolution is being
circulated by a growing collaboration of traditional (American Cancer
Society, Coalition for a Tobacco Free Vermont, Heart & Lung Associations)
and non-traditional anti-tobacco organizations, like Outright Vermont!
Essentially, this resolution
is an important piece of a larger campaign to address, prevent and stop
tobacco use here in Vermont. Our hope is to have the tobacco tax increased
on both cigarettes and chewing tobacco by the end of the 2006 legislative
session. (The last increase was in 2003 for cigarettes, but other tobacco
products haven't had a tax increase in 10 years!) It has been proven that
one of the effective ways to decrease smoking rates across the board,
is to continue to make the tobacco products out of the price range of
those who might use them. Plus, the revenue raised by the tobacco tax
can and does get returned to tobacco prevention efforts. These efforts
help round out the holistic approach that is needed to complete prevention
work (quit help, support groups, prevention education, outreach materials,
etc.).
I am sure I don't need
to tell you that tobacco use is harmful no matter what your age, sexual
orientation or gender may be. But did you know that according to the most
recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey results (2005) that queer youth are
two times more likely to smoke than their heterosexual peers? And that
overall, more than 1/2 of all sexually active queer youth in Vermont smoke?
For these reasons and many more,
Outright Vermont is part of this collaboration and it is my hope that
the many folks who support Outright will get their organizations and businesses
that you work for/with to sign onto this resolution. Simply print it out
and mail or email it back to Tobacco Free Vermont.
Thanks everyone.