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Posted on 08/01/2002 10:04:18 PM PDT by SheLion

BOSTON - Health advocates yesterday urged lawmakers to override acting Gov. Jane Swift's veto of $35.6 million from anti-smoking programs - which came just days after lawmakers voted to boost cigarettes taxes by 75 cents per pack.

The veto will reduce spending on the state's main anti-tobacco initiative by 70 percent and devastate programs that have helped cut the state's smoking rate by more than a third in the past decade, they said.

Anti-smoking advocates were among the many leaders of cultural, health and youth programs leaders who pressured Democratic leaders in the House and Senate to override some of Swift's other $355 million in vetoes.

Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program took the biggest hit among anti-smoking programs, with its funding slashed from $31.3 million to $9.5 million. Anti-smoking advocates say the cuts are unfair.

"Since we are asking smokers to pay more, it is only fair that the commonwealth support services that help smokers quit and prevent children from starting," said Kitty Jerome, director of the Massachusetts Coalition for a Healthy Future.

Swift said the cuts are painful but necessary to curb state spending during the ongoing fiscal crisis. Without the cuts, Swift said, the state will burn through its savings and be in even worse financial shape next year.

"No one is going to disagree with the statement that many valuable programs were cut, but that's just a fact of the fiscal reality," Swift aide Sarah Magazine said yesterday. "We're seeing cuts in just about every corner of state government."

Other activists were pushing overrides to Swift's vetoes to youth and cultural programs.

A cut to the state's YouthBuild program will force four of the state's 13 centers to close, according to Dorothy Stoneman, president of the Somerville-based YouthBuild USA. The program teaches the building trades to about 550 young people each year who have dropped out of school.

A $6.5 million veto to the Massachusetts Cultural Council will result in severe losses to cultural organizations and artists and could curtail spending at restaurants and hotels by people attending cultural events, advocates said.

Swift unveiled the vetoes Monday, saying the $22.9 billion budget delivered to her by lawmakers needed to be cut more to help maintain state reserves.

The vetoes now go back to lawmakers.

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