The University of Hawaii Cancer Center would receive a welcomed funding boost if the Legislature increases the state’s cigarette tax by another 2 cents, while a separate Senate bill would have forced the center to merge with the UH medical school, which UH previously said would jeopardize the center’s accreditation.
UH officials and health and cancer organizations support Senate Bill 1528 and the latest version of House Bill 441, which would increase the cigarette — or “little cigar” — tax to 18 cents from 16 cents.
The additional tax would be dedicated to the Hawai‘i Cancer Research special fund while simultaneously making it more expensive to buy cigarettes across the islands.
The latest version of HB 441 has been scheduled for a House Education Committee this afternoon at the Manoa campus.
SB 1528 has been referred to different Senate committees but has yet to be scheduled for hearings.
UH officials Thursday continued to push back against the latest effort by state Sen. Donna Kim — who chairs the Senate Higher Education Committee — to merge the Cancer Center with UH’s John A. Burns School of Medicine and have the center’s director report directly to the medical school dean.
A similar bill Kim introduced in 2020 was opposed by then-UH President David Lassner.
In his testimony at the time, Lassner said Kim’s bill usurped the authority of the UH Board of Regents while placing the UH Cancer Center’s accreditation from the National Cancer Institute at risk.
Kim’s 2020 bill “would replace the judgment and decision of the Board of Regents, which established the Cancer Center in 1981,” Lassner wrote in testimony at the time, “without regard for the potentially devastating impacts of such a change.”
At the time, the Cancer Center had been designated as one of only 71 NCI-designated cancer centers in the nation. There are now 72.
Earlier in 2020, Lassner said the center was visited by a committee composed of cancer center directors from across the county who made their annual visit to the UH Cancer Center to ensure it was complying with NCI guidelines.
He quoted the committee for praising the center’s “free-standing center with defined authority” as “vital” for its success and continued NCI designation.
Lassner also quoted the chair of the evaluation committee as saying that “most institutions” were interpreting NCI guidelines “as meaning the cancer center director should have the authority equivalent to that of a dean.”
Kim’s current proposal — SB 1204 — provides no justification or reasoning for folding the Cancer Center into the medical school and making the center’s director report to the JABSOM dean.
During a Senate Higher Education Committee Thursday on SB 1204, new UH President Wendy Hensel told the committee that UH Manoa Provost Michael Bruno was working on developing a recommendation over whether to merge the Cancer Center into JABSOM.
Bruno told Kim that the possibility of a merger could “take advantage of efficiencies.”
And UH officials acknowledged that half of the 72 NCI-accredited cancer centers around the country operate within their medical schools.
Currently, Hensel said, the Cancer Center sits among “the top 4% in the country” compared with all other cancer centers.
Hensel asked Kim to “respectfully … withdraw the bill” to give UH time to research the issue and make a recommendation on how to proceed for the 2026 legislative session.
Kim, clearly exasperated, said she has been asking for years for a plan and recommendation from UH over what to do about the Cancer Center.
But Kim agreed to defer her bill — in yet another sign of the honeymoon period Hensel continues to enjoy with key senators after years of them expressing unhappiness and open frustration toward Lassner and his top administrators.
“Your frustration is certainly justified,” Hensel told Kim. “We will get it done.”
Before Thursday’s Higher Education hearing, Bruno and Cancer Center Director Naoto Ueno wrote in testimony supporting increasing the cigarette tax that Cancer Center funding has fallen as statewide smoking cessation efforts have succeeded.
More than 70,000 people in Hawaii “are living with cancer and praying for a cure, and each year 2,300 Hawai‘i residents die of this terrible disease,” they wrote.
Cigarette tax revenue helped build the Cancer Center and its ongoing anti-cancer efforts.
“However, due to the success of smoking cessation efforts, this revenue has declined, indicating both progress in public health and a concerning decrease in resources for the initiatives that have fueled this advancement,” Nueto and Bruno wrote.
“Now providing less than half the funding compared with that of 2009, this source of revenue is no longer able to support its original intent to provide a top-notch facility, and to invest in the most promising cancer research, clinical care and community outreach.”
Opposition includes testimony from Tina Yamaki, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii.
She wrote that increasing the tax would disproportionately hurt sales for small businesses, “potentially leading to job losses and closures in an already fragile economic climate. We would also see more people purchasing these products on military bases or having friends and family purchasing it for them.”
“The higher price of these types of goods would only make it more attractive to shoplift,” Yamaki wrote.
Support for an increase in the cigarette tax to help the Cancer Center has come from Hawai‘i Pacific Health, The Queen’s Health Systems, the Hawaii Medical Association, the Hawaii Medical Service Association and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
