The University of Maryland's Greenebaum Cancer Center said it has secured commitments from Gov. Parris N. Glendening and state legislators to provide the center with $10 million per year from state tobacco settlement funds.

The center had been seeking the money to set up a statewide cancer research and treatment network.

The state will receive $4.6 billion as its share of the national settlement with tobacco companies. Health organizations and farmers' groups have come forward with proposals on how to use the money gleaned from the deal.

The funding of the cancer center is scheduled to begin next year, in the state's fiscal 2001 budget.

"Maryland has long suffered with levels of cancer incidence and mortality among the highest in the nation," Dr. Morton I. Rapoport, president and chief executive officer of the University of Maryland Medical System, said Monday in a statement. "Changing the nature of this disease's impact on Marylanders will be a lasting legacy of the tobacco settlement."

Pub Date: 4/14/99