The Greatest Mother’s Day Gift Any Mom Could Receive
My mother, Marnie Fahr Steyer, was a lifelong smoker — up to three packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day. I like to think that, if Mom were still with us today, she’d be happy with the strides we’ve made to protect our children from the ongoing health crisis of tobacco addiction. After all, she was a public school teacher who spent decades educating inner-city kids in New York.
Back when mom was growing up, smoking was just something people did. These days, people compulsively check their smart phones, but back then everyone was lighting up. News reporters smoked on-air, and stars across Hollywood had a cigarette in hand. This sent a subtle but unmistakable message to young people that they couldn’t truly become “adult” until they started down this addictive, deadly path.
Thanks to its powerful lobbyists and its marketing machine, Big Tobacco pushed addiction to its lethal product while suppressing damning health studies for decades. Their main target: young people. All companies try appealing to a younger demographic, but for Big Tobacco it’s an absolute necessity. Hooking young smokers and ensuring a lifelong dependency is the business plan, pure and simple.
Tobacco is the number one cause of preventable death in California. It kills more of our friends and neighbors each year than car accidents, murder and illegal drugs combined. Each of these deaths is as tragic as it is unnecessary, and fortunately Governor Brown seems to agree. This week, he signed laws to raise the smoking age in California to 21, restrict the use of electronic cigarettes in public places, and expand no-smoking areas at our schools.
It’s a major victory for children and public health. But if Big Tobacco has demonstrated one thing over the years, it’s an amazing ability to adapt and survive in a world increasingly hostile to its deadly product.
We need to keep up the pressure. That’s why I’m co-chairing the Save Lives California campaign. We’re proposing a $2 fee on each pack of cigarettes and other tobacco products (including e-cigarettes). The American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and the American Lung Association all strongly support this initiative because it will prevent kids from picking up the habit.
Californians pay $3.5 billion dollars every year on existing medical programs to treat cancer and other tobacco-related diseases. By implementing a $2 fee per pack for those who smoke, we’ll significantly reduce the number of kids who get hooked on cigarettes each year, and overall health costs will decline. We will also generate over a billion for healthcare in California that will be matched dollar for dollar with another billion from the federal government — a great deal for California.
I can’t help but think that, if measures like these had been in place when my mom was growing up, she might never have started the fatal tobacco habit. Today, I might be celebrating Mother’s Day with her instead of in her memory.
By putting Save Lives California on the ballot this November, we can help today’s kids live longer, healthier lives. That’s the greatest Mother’s Day gift any mom could receive.
