The long-running battle over Mississippi's smoking-prevention efforts has taken a new turn, with state lawmakers proposing the creation of a new Mississippi Tobacco Control Commission, the Associated Press reported Jan. 10.

The Mississippi House voted 101-18 this week to create the commission, which would receive $20 million annually from the state's share of the 1998 nationwide tobacco settlement. Previously, that money had been going to The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi, a private nonprofit group.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a longtime ally of the tobacco industry, and former Attorney General Mike Moore, who drafted the settlement, have been locked in a bitter struggle over the future of the Partnership and funding for tobacco prevention in Mississippi. But Moore praised the new legislation even though it seemingly undercuts the Partnership.

"The bill is exactly what tobacco-control advocates have wanted and what Mississippi's citizens deserve," Moore said. "It keeps the promise we made of a tobacco-free future for our kids when we became the first state to sue and win this historic litigation against the dirty marketing tactics and products of the tobacco industry."

The legal battles over the Partnership and its funding arrangement have left tobacco-prevention funding in limbo and hamstrung the Partnership. Barbour has proposed splitting the $20 million four ways, with $5 million dedicated to tobacco prevention, $5 million for school nursing, $5 million for narcotics control, and $5 million for cancer research.