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IP receives criticism over alleged threat to research

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Raise Your Hands for Kids (RYH4K), a children’s advocacy organization, has an initiative-petition circulating and gathering signatures that would raise the state’s 17-cent cigarette tax, one of the lowest in the country, to 77 cents. The money would go towards early childhood health and education services.

However, not everyone is on board with the proposal. Earlier this month, a group of health advocacy organizations came forward in opposition of two IPs which would raise taxes on tobacco products. The Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association (MPCA) have an IP of their own that would also raise the tobacco tax to fund state transportation projects.

Ron Leone, the executive director of the MPCA, has made allegations that language in the RYH4K IP could mean the money goes towards funding abortions in Missouri, although Missouri Right to Life and the Missouri Catholic Conference both support the IP.

The latest attack on the RYH4K petition has come from a group called Missouri Cures, an organization that promotes medical advancement and research. In a guest editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the organization alleges that the proposal contains language that harms the perception of stem cell research.

“This year, anti-research language has crept into the Raise Your Hands for Kids constitutional ballot initiative that would increase Missouri’s tobacco tax to fund early childhood education and tobacco prevention programs,” write Donn Rubin and Dena Ladd of Missouri Cures. “This provision, entirely unrelated to the purpose of the initiative, would stigmatize stem cell research and threaten the protections passed by Missouri voters in 2006… We urge the proponents of RYH4K to remove the harmful and unnecessary language threatening medical research.”

RYH4K Executive Director Linda Rallo does not believe the IP is a threat, and encouraged Missouri Cure to pursue their own IP for their cause.

Rallo
Rallo

“It’s unfortunate that Missouri Cures has interpreted our initiative to increase the state tobacco tax as somehow threatening to the life science community,” Rallo said. “It is disingenuous at best and fear mongering at worst to suggest so. The fact of the matter is that our effort has absolutely nothing to do with life science research – or any research at all. If Missouri Cures wishes to access a new revenue source for life science research, we would encourage them to pursue their own initiative. The ballot language supported by Raise Your Hand for Kids does one thing and one thing only – it provides for a modest tobacco tax increase to fund early childhood education and health initiatives like smoking cessation for pregnant women and youth. And importantly, it does this while ensuring through a constitutional amendment that the funds raised cannot be diverted to other purposes – whether that’s for abortions, for stem cell research or for a bridge to nowhere for that matter. 

“There is something that Raise Your Hand for Kids and the Missouri Cures group do absolutely agree on: Missouri needs to create an environment that welcomes new businesses and industries and supports innovation,” Rallo continued. “We believe to create this economic environment we must have a skilled and educated workforce, and that starts with making critical investments into early childhood education in Missouri. Allowing another generation of Missouri children to enter elementary school without the benefit of a robust early childhood education is the single most detrimental thing we can do to Missouri’s economy. 

“We’re thrilled by leaders in the business, health, and education communities from throughout the state who support this initiative, and we look forward to working with them to help move this effort forward.”

Leone also welcomed the opposition to the RYH4K language.

“The opposition to Raise Your Hand For Kids from Missouri Cures is just the latest issue to arise for this bad proposal, which has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum,” he said in a statement. The outrageous and unfair 750 percent tobacco tax increase is bad enough, but when you combine it with deeply flawed language that would be recklessly enshrined in the Missouri Constitution, Missouri voters should and will reject this scheme. RJR Tobacco has paid for and co-opted Raise Your Hand For Kids with more than $1.4 million, and now Raise Your Hand For Kids is being called out for both its hypocrisy and its flawed language.”