Why Dying Breed?
Surveys show that 70% of smokers want to quit and virtually all know smoking is harmful. Over 40% try to quit each year but often fail — prohibited, by cost or lack of awareness, from using cessation aides proven to help. Meanwhile, prevention programs beg for inadequate funds from public and charitable sources to combat industry resources derived entirely from the victims of tobacco. Similarly, excise taxes are regressively squandered on unrelated public costs while offering little assistance to smokers, further driving them towards the perceived ‘protection’ of the industry.
DBF changes all of this:
- Based on existing non-profit law / IRS accepted model
- Minimal cost to implement — competitive startup, not an industry ‘buy out’
- Doubles value of every $ redirected (from profit, to prevention/cessation)
- Forms an alliance with current smokers — Makes them part of the solution
- No new cost or short-term behavior change for smokers
- Non-political / Not a ‘big-government’ solution
- Doesn't impact excise taxes (but could leverage them in the future)
- Supports existing cessation/prevention interventions — not a new program
- ‘Quit Accounts’ provide tangible incentive for cessation attempts
- Permits direct promotion of cessation to participating smokers
- Eliminates insurance/income disparities for cessation aids
- Automatically ties prevention funding to magnitude of problem
- Sunsets manufacturing capacity as demand is reduced
- Assures public health organizational leadership & corporate decisions
- Generates detailed data for studying smoking and evaluating interventions
- Exploits ‘undifferentiateds’ nature of existing products and distribution channels
- Intended to leave a ‘permanent’ foundation fund to prevent re-emergence
- Sustains and builds upon past successes in tobacco control and treatment
