States Spending Less to Fight Smoking
State governments are collecting record revenues from tobacco companies but spending less and less of it on antismoking programs, especially in New York, a group of health and advocacy organizations said in a report released Wednesday.
In the report, titled “A Broken Promise to Our Children,” the organizations said state governments had reduced spending by 15 percent, to $567 million, for smoking prevention and cessation programs in the fiscal year that ended in September.
State spending on antismoking programs accounted for only 2.3 percent of the more than $25 billion that states are expected to collect from tobacco taxes and payouts from the $246 billion settlement that states reached with tobacco companies in 1998, the groups said in their 11th annual report since the settlement.
“It’s a travesty that only a small fraction of tobacco settlement funds is actually being used to support tobacco prevention programs in states,” Nancy Brown, chief executive of the American Heart Association — one of the groups behind the report — said in a statement.
States are not required to spend the money on antismoking programs. The National Conference of State Legislatures reported Wednesday that states had to fill a cumulative budget gap of $145 billion this year because of unprecedented revenue declines.
States’ tobacco-related revenue has grown because 14 states have raised taxes on tobacco in the recession and the payouts from the 1998 tobacco settlement increased in 2008.
New York State made some of the largest cuts to antismoking programs, reducing them by $25.2 million, or 31 percent, the groups said, adding that it did so “despite having a successful program that has reduced smoking to well below national rates.”
Other states that made large cuts last year were Colorado, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington.
Only one state, North Dakota, has smoking prevention and cessation programs at the level recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the report said.
Matt Anderson, budget spokesman for Gov. David A. Paterson of New York, said the state had to cut the programs to help fill a $3 billion deficit.
