Prop. 29 Backers Praise Kayser for LAUSD Board’s Ballot Measure Support

A week after the Los Angeles Unified District’s Board of Education unanimously endorsed Prop. 29, a ballot measure aimed at raising tobacco taxes to fund new cancer research, some key supporters of the proposition praised District 4 Board Member Bennett Kayser on Tuesday for proposing the motion that won the backing of his colleagues.

“We applaud the leadership of Board Member Kayser and the entire Los Angeles Unified School District [whose] support of the ‘Yes on 29’ campaign can change the tide,” Eric Batch, vice president of advocacy for the American Heart Association Western States Affiliate, said in an LAUSD news statement.

The proposed tax of $1 on each cigarette pack will save 104,000 lives, stop 228,000 kids from smoking, and generate more than $735 million annually for the prevention, detection and treatment of heart disease, cancer and other smoking-related illnesses in California, Batch added.

Besides LAUSD board members, other supporters who praised Kayser along with Batch at the LAUSD headquarters included Charlie Smith, a representative of the American Cancer Society.

“As a middle school health teacher of 14 years, I am committed to protecting the next generation of children from the well-documented harms of smoking,” said Kayser, who suffers from Parkinson's disease and talks openly about it. “Proposition 29 has gained the support of the Board of Education because it will save lives—every 10-percent increase in the price of a pack of cigarettes drops youth smoking by 6.5 percent.”

Prop. 29, which will on the ballot in the June 5 primaries, calls for taxes on the sale of cigarettes to be spent on new, state-supervised cancer research. The ballot measure was endorsed 7-0 by the LAUSD Board of Education May 22. It was not, however, approved this past Sunday by the Los Angeles Times in a list of the paper’s official endorsements.