Few state quit-aids

With no funding for 2017-18, the West Virginia Division of Tobacco Prevention is to sack all but one of the people currently working in its eight-person office, according to an AP State & Local story relayed by the TMA.

The Division’s director Jim Kerrigan will then be its only employee.

Kerrigan said that he wanted to keep two programs going: Quitline, a tobacco-cessation hotline; and RAZE, an anti-tobacco education program aimed at teenagers.

The division is currently operating on state funds carried over from the previous budget year, and on federal grants.

Juliana Frederick Curry of the American Cancer Society described the cuts as “disheartening” because the state had the highest youth smoking rate and the second-highest adult smoking rate in the US.