State Smoking Ban Initiative

* Thanks for your article, “Pitch to Put Smoking Ban on Ballot Is Deceptive, Critics Say,” April 10.

I am outraged that I was duped. Like Dave Emerson, I was only too ready to oblige the request to sign a petition against smoking in public places. I received the petition the next day. I thought it a bit of overkill when I also received a follow-up phone call urging me to immediately sign and mail the petition. I quickly scanned the contents, remarked to my husband that it really didn’t go far enough, but I signed it thinking that anything is better than nothing. Unlike Emerson, I didn’t notice the small print on the return envelope (Philip Morris Inc. among the backers). You can be sure in the future I will never sign another petition without reading every single word.

AUDREY BISHOP

Agoura

* On exiting from our local discount store, I was approached by a canvasser and requested to sign a petition. He said its purpose was “to put a stop smoking” measure on the ballot. I insisted on first reading the petition. It was reluctantly handed to me.

Lo and behold! The petition I was requested to sign was for a measure that would in effect, not stop smoking, but instead would greatly emasculate our city’s present ordinance!

LOUIS ROBINS

Van Nuys

* In the next few weeks state lawmakers must reauthorize the distribution of Proposition 99 tobacco tax revenues. Under the terms of the initiative, 20% of the money (around $87 million) is required to go to fund the anti-smoking education account. The Wilson Administration proposes cutting the funding to 11.7%.

Proposition 99’s anti-tobacco public education campaign has proven itself as the most successful prevention effort in the United States. The numbers say it all: 1 million fewer smokers in California, 1.1 billion fewer packs sold and $385 million in saved health care costs.

Because of its phenomenal success, the tobacco industry and its legislative allies are out to destroy the Proposition 99 tobacco education fund. Losing sales of 1.1 billion packs of cigarettes hurts even the profitable cigarette makers, and they want the education fund killed.

California’s tobacco control program has become a model to the nation of how to reduce the single largest cause of preventable death and disease. For the Legislature to continue to divert funds from the health education account would be to hand the nicotine pushers a major political victory and to defy the clear mandate of the voters.

PAUL HERR

Arcadia