New report shows NJ ranks last for funding tobacco control programs (Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids press release)
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According to the 2015 annual report published by Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK) entitled “Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-by-State Look at the 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 17 Years Later,” New Jersey ranks last in the country in funding programs that prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. New Jersey is the only state that has budgeted zero state funds for tobacco prevention programs this year, marking the fourth year in a row the state has provided no funding. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that the state spend $103.3 million annually on the program. Other key report findings include:
- New Jersey will collect $920.7 million this year from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes.
- In New Jersey, 12.9 percent of high school students smoke, and 5,400 kids become regular smokers each year. Tobacco claims 11,800 lives and costs the state $4.1 billion in health care bills annually.
- States with well-funded, sustained tobacco prevention programs result in lowered youth smoking rates. Florida’s high school smoking rate to just 6.9 percent this year, a 75 percent decline since 1998. North Dakota, which ranks first for the third year in a row in this report, cut smoking among high school students by nearly half from 2009 to 2015 (from 22.4 percent to 11.7 percent).
- Tobacco use kills more than 480,000 Americans and costs the nation about $170 billion in health care expenses each year.
- The tobacco industry spends billions on marketing, especially at point of sale (retail location). Nationwide, the tobacco companies spent $9.6 billion a year in 2012 – more than one million dollars every hour – to market their products, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s Cigarette Report for 2012, published in 2015.
- A November 2015 report by Truth Initiative, Vaporized: Youth and Young Adult Exposure to E- Cigarette Marketing, found that the industry spent $115.3 million to advertise and market e-cigarettes, which is a 52 percent increase from 2013 to 2014.
CFTK’s full 2015 report and state-specific information can be found at www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/settlements.