Big Tobacco Sees Anti-Smoking Programs Go Up in Smoke

Big-tobacco companies have been losing battles for years as smokers have been run out of bars and restaurants across America as well as heavy taxes that help fund anti-smoking programs. The anti-tobacco marketing appear to have helped make smoking uncool, with less than 20% of American adults smoking last year, part of a "decades-long decline" as the Wall Street Journal puts it.

So tobacco companies cheered the recent blocking by a U.S. judge blocking the U.S. government's move forcing tobacco companies to put nasty imagery on its packaging to show smokers what might happen to them if they continue inhaling their nicotine.

Now the Associated Press reports that the tobacco companies have another reason to pass around cigars: “States have cut funding for tobacco prevention programs 12 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1999,” according to a new report by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Cancer Society and other groups.

The continued budget problems across the globe have resulted in states rolling back some of the anti-smoking programs they have invested in. According to the report, the U.S. will spend a collective $456.7 million on anti-smoking programs this fiscal year while taking in $25.6 billion in tobacco taxes and legal settlements from the tobacco industry, the AP reports.

"There are no easy cuts anymore,” said Debra Miller, director of health policy for the Council of State Governments, the AP reports. “There's the old expression, tried and true, 'it's not fat anymore, we're talking about bone.' All revenue is looked at as revenue for the highest priority programs. ... They aren't ignoring the whole idea of tobacco cessation and the public health issues, the budgets are just such a problem right now.”

Four states — Connecticut, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Ohio — and the District of Columbia are spending absolutely nothing on ant-smoking this fiscal year, the AP reports. "At a time when they're getting as much revenue as ever ... they're spending less than ever," comments Danny McGoldrick, vice president of research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, according to the Associated Press. "It's really a penny-wise, pound-foolish decision because we're going to pay for it (in the long-term)."