November 1, 2006

Less Than One Week to Go--Please Help Win An Historic Victory for Children in California!

The California State PTA is asking you to vote YES on 86 and asks you to ask everyone you know to vote YES on 86.

The latest polls on the Tobacco Tax show Prop 86 is still leading. It is clearly winnable, but the vote will be close. Thanks so much to those of you who have worked so hard for 86’s passage. In these last days, we especially need your help.

To date, the tobacco companies had spent $65 million to defeat Prop 86 and are outspending the YES Campaign on the airwaves 7 to 1. The bad news is people are starting to believe tobacco’s propaganda. This means we have to take advantage of our two greatest assets:

1) We’re right and voters agree. Prop 86 is our best opportunity in a decade to provide health insurance for California’s kids and keep tobacco companies from addicting the next generation of kids.

2) Each of us has the power to talk to other people about Prop 86’s value and ask them to do the same. You can add your voice and contacts to our people- to- people campaign strategy -- which is more effective than anything Big Tobacco can buy.

Pasted below is background about Prop 86. Please contact as many people as you can and ask them to each contact ten others, who in turn contact ten others, etc.

In the meantime, many thanks for taking the time to help lead Prop 86 to victory and achieving a monumental win for California’s kids!

Prop 86 will increase the state’s tobacco tax by $2.60 per pack of cigarettes and offers California the best chance to prevent teens from smoking, save lives, and provide immediate help to some of California’s major health care challenges.

Specifically, Prop 86 will prevent more than 700,000 kids now under the age of 17 from becoming smokers, save 300,000 lives from smoking-related deaths and will save nearly $16.5 billion in healthcare costs. Teenagers are the most susceptible population of all to nicotine addiction and studies have shown that the higher the price of cigarettes, the less likely it is that teenagers will buy them. In addition to the obvious benefits of reducing smoking in California, revenue from the tax will go to important health-related causes such as providing health insurance to every child in California. Did you know that nearly 800,000 children in CA do not have health insurance? This means that they are not going to the doctor, getting eye glasses, going to the dentist, or getting needed care for childhood illnesses, such as ear infections and asthma. Prop 86 is the solution to ensuring that all children can go to the doctor when they need to.

Revenues from Prop 86 will also fund tobacco cessation services, prostate cancer treatment, nursing education programs, hospital emergency and trauma care, community clinics, breast and cervical cancer programs, heart disease and stroke programs, tobacco prevention education programs, tobacco control enforcement programs, and health and disease research.

Big Tobacco has already invested nearly $60 million in the No Campaign and will probably outspend the Yes Campaign 7 to 1 before this is over. We must rely on our grassroots connections to spread the truth about Prop 86 and dispel the lies Big Tobacco is spreading.

Please pass this email on to your network, and if you have any questions about Prop 86, please let us know, and we will do our best to answer your questions.

Please visit www.yesprop86.org to learn more and to see the list of hundreds of supporters.

And remember--vote YES on 86.

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