Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Comprehensive tobacco control efforts play a critical role in reducing smoking and lowering the health and economic toll of the smoking epidemic. But Indiana woefully underfunds these initiatives, falling far below federal recommendations and dollars spent in other states, according to a new report commissioned by the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Indiana devoted just $8.2 million in federal and state spending in 2016 to preventing Hoosiers from starting to smoke, helping them quit, and protecting people from secondhand smoke. This is only 11 percent of the $73.5 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention […]

With so many COVID-19 related challenges before us, we cannot lose sight of the people in our lives and in our communities struggling with addiction. The opioid crisis, and substance use disorder more broadly, need our attention now more than ever.