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 prevention, education, and treatment 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+.

| Check out our policy statement, Reinvesting in a Comprehensive Commercial Tobacco Prevention & Treatment Program is Critical for the Health of Washingtonians to learn more about current state investments |

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.

From 2000-2009, Washington State dedicated portions of tobacco tax revenues and Master Settlement funding into a multi-faceted, comprehensive program to prevent use and help people quit nicotine. A 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). This is a model strategy that Washington needs to reinvest in.

Components of a Comprehensive State Strategy:

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, and subsequently those that are most impacted by tobacco-related disease and premature death.

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. 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.