Despite Record Tobacco Revenues, States Slash Tobacco Prevention Programs

Despite their receiving record amounts of revenue from tobacco taxes and from the 1998 state tobacco settlement, states have cut funding for tobacco prevention programs by more than 15 percent in the past year, says a new report by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

States will collect $25.1 billion in revenue from the tobacco settlement and from tobacco taxes in 2010, and many states will even raise tobacco taxes. But they have cut funding for tobacco prevention by $103.4 million in the past year,and will spend just $567.5 million (2.3 percent of tobacco revenues) on tobacco prevention and cessation programs.