Harrodsburg Herald, a weekly newspaper, does three-part series on tobacco issues in Mercer County and statewide

In a state where more than one of every four adults smoke, tobacco is an issue in every county, but it's rare for weekly newspapers to take a detailed look at the issue. The Harrodsburg Herald did that recently, in a three-part series by Robert Moore.

Moore explored why Mercer County and the state have relatively little money for tobacco prevention, writing, "Kentucky doesn't seem all that interested in fighting tobacco. In 2014 the state will receive $158.7 million in tobacco settlement money and spend only $2.5 million to help smokers quit and prevent kids from starting, according to the Kentucky Center for Smoke-free Policy."

The states' lawsuit against cigarette manufacturers, and the Master Settlement Agreement that followed, was ostensibly to recover their costs for treating illnesses due to smoking. However, most of the money has gone to general purposes, and in Kentucky half the money was dedicated to improving the agricultural economy — but the legislature steered some of that money elsewhere, mainly for rural water lines, Moore noted.

"The largest single use of tobacco funds now is debt service," he wrote. "Every year, $28 million of the MSA payment goes to pay interest on $434,883,200 in outstanding municipal bonds. The bonds financed various construction projects over the last decade—$20 million for construction of the UK Veterinary Diagnostic Center in Lexington and $2 million for renovations to the FFA Leadership Training Center in Hardinsburg, both in 2008."

Another story explored the growing phenomenon of electronic cigarettes, and the other looked at efforts to curb smoking, statewide and locally. Moore looked at lobbying and campaign-finance reports from Altria Group, the leading cigarette manufacturer, and wrote about efforts by the Burgin High School chapter of Teens Against Tobacco Use to have smoking banned on their campus.

In a more recent story, Moore updated the Burgin issue, concluding, "Until something changes in the state legislature, schools like Burgin will be the most important battlegrounds in the fight against tobacco-related deaths."

Weekly paper in Carter County runs voluntary-response survey about statewide smoking ban, finds slim majority in favor

Wikipedia map: Carter County

The Journal-Times, the weekly newspaper in Carter County, is running an online "poll" of reader opinions about the proposed statewide smoking ban and finding a slim majority in favor of it. At 4:20 p.m. Sunday, 52.3 percent of the voluntary respondents said they favored the legislation, while 45.4 percent said they opposed it and 2.3 percent said they didn't care.

Despite those numbers, reporter Leeann Akers writes that the idea "seems to be unpopular in Carter County," based on "overwhelming opinion on social media." She cites the Facebook page of the Carter County Citizens For a Better Way and this post from Brandon Boggs: “If a business wants to prohibit smoking they have that right, however, we have the right to support that business or not depending on our personal preferences.”

Some posters on the page favor the ban. Travis Horton wrote: "I as a nonsmoker think people that smoke in restaurants or in businesses are showing disrespect for people with health issues and other things."

A continuing national survey by the federal Centers for Disease Control has found that between 31 and 46 percent of Carter County residents smoke, with the most likely number being 38 percent, well above the statewide figure of 29 percent in the same survey.

Akers reports that the county's two state legislators, "Sen. Robin Webb and Rep. Jill York, both say they remain undecided on how they will vote if it comes to the floor but both have a history of following their voters." She gives the legislators' email addresses and the telephone number to leave a message for them.

"This is the sort of story that most local newspapers with websites can do," said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of Kentucky Health News. "But I suggest that they avoid calling any voluntary-response survey a poll, because that word implies that the results are from a scientific, random sample, and that they remind readers of that in giving the results."