New Report Shows Room for Improvement in North Carolina Tobacco Prevention Funding

North Carolina’s tobacco prevention funding falls short of levels necessary to be effective, according to a new report released today by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and other health organizations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises that North Carolina spend $106.8 million a year to have a successful, comprehensive tobacco prevention program. The state currently allocates only $20 million per year, which is 18.7 percent of the CDC-recommended level.

The report ranks North Carolina 24^th nationwide in tobacco prevention spending, up from 32^nd last year.

“North Carolina will not see a significant reduction in smoking rates until we make tobacco prevention a greater priority,” said David Goff, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention and professor of Public Health Sciences and Internal Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

“Many smokers want to quit, and prevention and cessation programs are proven to help them give up tobacco permanently,” Goff continued. “The $107 million recommended by the CDC is a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars North Carolina loses each year to smoking-related health care costs. Making a small investment now in tobacco prevention could save billions of dollars and thousands of lives.”

“Although we’re making progress with smoke-free workplace laws, higher tobacco excise taxes and enactment of federal legislation to regulate the tobacco industry, we must do more to give smokers the tools and resources they need to kick this deadly habit,” commented Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association. “State lawmakers have more than enough resources to make a huge difference in their communities. Now they must back their promises with real and immediate results.”

North Carolina receives millions of dollars per year from the 1998 tobacco settlement fund, which was intended to be used to combat smoking. The state will collect $428 million in settlement funds and tobacco taxes this year, of which just 4.7 percent is devoted to tobacco prevention programs. Conversely, tobacco companies spend $535.9 million each year to market their products to North Carolinians.

In North Carolina, 1.5 million adults smoke, leading to nearly 12,000 preventable deaths a year caused by smoking, and more than 1,000 deaths among non-smokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke. This costs North Carolina taxpayers $2.46 billion in direct healthcare costs ($769 million in Medicaid expenses alone), and $3.3 billion in lost productivity annually.

Almost 12,000 North Carolina children become regular smokers each year, and 193,000 children alive today will die prematurely because of smoking.

The annual report on states’ funding of tobacco prevention programs, titled “A Broken Promise to Our Children: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 11 Years Later,” was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.