SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 15

51st legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2013

INTRODUCED BY

Gerald Ortiz y Pino

A JOINT MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE FORMATION OF A TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOBACCO USE AND EMPLOYER COSTS, INCLUDING THE IMPACTS ON ORGANIZATIONS THAT EMPLOY TOBACCO USERS.

     WHEREAS, tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, responsible for about one of every five deaths annually; and

     WHEREAS, smoking cost the United States more than one hundred ninety-three billion dollars ($193,000,000,000) a year between 2001 and 2004, including ninety-seven billion dollars ($97,000,000,000) in lost productivity annually and ninety-six billion dollars ($96,000,000,000) in direct health care expenditures annually; and

     WHEREAS, smoking accounted for more than three million years of potential life lost in men and two million years of potential life lost in women between 2000 and 2004, reducing life expectancy by approximately fourteen years; and

     WHEREAS, smoking-attributable health care expenditures totaled an estimated ninety-six billion dollars ($96,000,000,000) annually between 2001 and 2004, up more than twenty billion dollars ($20,000,000,000) from seventy-five billion five hundred million dollars ($75,500,000,000) in 1998; and

     WHEREAS, there are no incentives for New Mexico employers to establish smoking cessation programs or develop tobacco-free campuses; and

     WHEREAS, on the contrary, New Mexico law may actually impede efforts to reduce tobacco use, interfere with reasonable employment practices and not allow for incentives for employers to improve employee health and productivity; and

     WHEREAS, the state would benefit from a review of those laws;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the following organizations be requested to form a task force to study the relationship between tobacco use and employer costs, including the impacts on organizations that employ tobacco users, and recommend changes in laws to decrease workplace productivity losses and employer and employee health care and insurance costs due to tobacco use: the association of commerce and industry of New Mexico, New Mexico chambers of commerce, the New Mexico hospital association, leading health care providers in New Mexico, the insurance division of the public regulation commission or its successor, the American lung association, the New Mexico medical society, the American cancer society and the greater Albuquerque medical association; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the New Mexico legislative council be requested to appoint up to four public members to the task force; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the task force be requested to report its findings and recommendations to the legislative health and human services committee by November 1, 2013; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to representatives of the aforementioned organizations.

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