The Vermont Tobacco Evaluation and Review Board will hold public comment on Wednesday, June 18, 3:00-5:00 p.m. The board will host the hearing from the Vermont Interactive Television (VIT) site in Waterbury. Vermonters are invited to participate in Waterbury or from VIT sites throughout the state.  Please visit www.vitlink.org for a list of sites and directions.

The board is interested in your opinions about all aspects of Vermont’s Tobacco Control Program. Some questions to consider as you prepare your comments:

1. What recommendations do you have to improve Vermont’s Tobacco Control Program outcomes given a potential for no increase to the budget in the next few years?  

2. Is there is a need to shift funding from other components of the Tobacco Control Program to address higher rates of smoking among low income Vermonters and individuals with mental health and/or substance abuse issues? If so, what are your program and budget recommendations?

3. What aspects of the Tobacco Control Program do you believe contribute to smokers using our Vermont Quit Network (quit online, quit by phone and quit in person)?

4. Looking at the cost, effectiveness, and the reach among the cessation network, do you have ideas to improve any of these areas?

5. Looking at the cost, effectiveness, and the reach of youth prevention (school-based curricula including cessation, tobacco free policy, media interventions including the common theme campaigns and enforcement of youth access laws), do you have ideas to improve any of these areas?

Keep in mind the Tobacco Control Program 2010 goals: reduce the youth smoking rate to 15% (currently at 16%), reduce the adult smoking rate to 11% (currently at 17.6%) and to reduce exposure of all Vermonters to secondhand smoke. For more details about the program, visit the board’s website at http://human.services.vermont.gov/tobacco.

Your comments will provide valuable feedback to the board’s five committees when each meets this summer to review relevant components of the program and budget. The committees’ recommendations will be considered by the full board on September 10 when it will vote on the FY10 program and budget recommendation to the Governor and the Legislature.

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