Restore Comprehensive Funding

We know that programs to prevent youth vaping, reduce smoking disparities, and equitably provide cessation services cannot be successful without sustained investment over time. A comprehensive and well-funded state program is essential for:

• Providing evidence-based and equity-focused treatment, prevention, and education services in all communities;
• Reducing known disparities in populations that are targeted by the tobacco industry and systemically disadvantaged; and
• Protecting our children, teens, and young adults from the industry’s pervasive e-cigarette marketing that fuels the vaping epidemic, especially among those who are Native American, Alaskan Native, people of color, and LGBTQ+.

Washington was a national leader in reducing smoking and improving health in the early 2000s because of state investments that protected communities and helped people quit nicotine. From 2000 to 2009, about $23.6 million of state funds were invested each year in the Department of Health’s comprehensive prevention and cessation program that supported community-based programs, school-based programs, cessation services, retailer education and compliance to prevent youth access, and public awareness campaigns. As a result:

• Overall smoking rates fell 22.5% to 17.6% and youth smoking fell 12.5% to 7.8% from 2001-2005.² These results exceeded national declines during the same time.
• Each $1 spent by the state on tobacco prevention and control saved more than $5 in tobacco-related health care costs from 2000-2009.³ Hospitalizations for heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease and cancer caused by tobacco use were reduced during this time.

Components of a Comprehensive State Strategy:

This is a model strategy that Washington needs to reinvest in. The seven-year program plan was developed through an inclusive process and is described in A Tobacco Prevention and Control Plan For Washington State (September 2000).

Lack of sufficient investment has slowed the state’s progress towards reducing smoking and other nicotine use, especially in communities with the highest tobacco use rates.

State funding for commercial tobacco prevention and cessation was dramatically cut during the Great Recession in 2009, and has not been restored to support the proven comprehensive strategy outlined above. Program funding went from an average of $23.6 million per year (2000-2009) to an average of $2.3 million per year (2012-2022). Successful programs were scaled back or shut down, and many experienced staff could not be retained.

The pie chart above shows distribution of revenues for FY 2022 and the allocations are similar today.⁴
Since FY 2020, revenues from the vapor products tax have been allocated 50% to the Andy Hill Cancer Research Endowment and 50% to Foundational Public Health Services (FPHS). FPHS funding supports critical governmental public health infrastructure, but does not directly fund commercial tobacco prevention or cessation programs. In FY 2023, revenues linked to cigarettes sales decreased, resulting in total tobacco-related revenues to the state of $429 million. Use of some MSA funds to pay off bonds was completed in July 2024.

Deep Cuts to Federal Tobacco Control Programs and Grants to States

In February 2025, the CDC Office on Smoking & Health (OSH) was reduced and further eliminated in early April. The future of key OSH initiatives that we rely on in Washington State is not known, including the:

• National Youth Tobacco Survey that provides information not assessed in the WA Healthy Youth Survey;
• Tips from Former Smokers public education campaign that has helped over one million people successfully quit from 2012-2018, saving an estimated $7 billion in smoking-related healthcare costs;
• Surgeon General's Reports on commercial tobacco; and
• the National and State Tobacco Control Program grant funding that supports state and territorial tobacco control programs with about $86 million in funding each year.

The FDA Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) that regulates commercial tobacco products was drastically scaled back. The CTP is funded through user fees on manufacturers and importers of commercial tobacco products, so cutting this center does not save tax dollars. Other updates include:

• Senior leadership put on administrative leave. This included Brian King, the CTP Director;
• Staff responsible for issuing warnings to retailers who are selling tobacco products to underage youth were laid off, then asked to return temporarily; and
• Most of the regulatory division of CTP was cut.

Impacts on WA from loss of CDC Commercial Tobacco Control Grant

The CDC tobacco control grant to Washington State was scheduled to renew another year on April 29, 2025, but it did not due to dramatic changes in federal spending priorities. Overall, the CDC provides about $86 million each year for state and territorial programs. Quitlines are a common use of the CDC grant funds, supporting at least 25% of Quitline costs in 18 states and at least 75% of costs in 5 states and 2 territories.

Roughly $2 million per year from the CDC grant has been the major source of funding for the WA State Quitline and for most staff positions in the Department of Health's Commercial Tobacco Prevention Program. It has also funded critical programs, such as expanding access to free NRTs and mass media education campaigns to reduce youth vaping and reach other high risk populations.

Specific examples of what the CDC grant supported in WA include:

• Funding 59% of the WA State Quitline system;
• Developing the American Indian/Alaskan Native Quitline, with culturally trained coaches;
• Expanding eligibility for free NRTs from the Quitline to include people who smoke menthol cigarettes and to American Indian/Alaskan Native people;
• Developing mass media education campaigns to prevent youth use, reduce menthol tobacco use, and promote the WA State Quitline;
• Integrating commercial tobacco use screening and cessation services into behavioral health care facilities across the state;
• Providing funding to contractors across the state for commercial tobacco prevention and cessation work in specific regions or with specific populations;
• Supporting the establishment and work of Washington Breathes and the WA State Veteran Commercial Tobacco Coalition.

Learn More About Cuts to Federal Tobacco Control Programs

• What federal health agency cuts mean for tobacco control (Truth Initiative)
• Why CDC cuts are being called ‘the greatest gift to tobacco industry in the last half-century’ (STAT News)
• Mass firings hit US tobacco regulators overwhelmed with thousands of new products (The Examination)