Summary: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that Utah spend $23.6 million a year to have an effective, comprehensive tobacco prevention program.  Utah currently receives $8.2 million a year for tobacco prevention and cessation, which includes both state and federal funds.  This is 34.7% of the CDC's recommendation and ranks Utah 17th among the states in the funding of tobacco prevention programs.  Utah's spending on tobacco prevention amounts to 7.8% of the estimated $105 million in tobacco-generated revenue the state collects each year from settlement payments and tobacco taxes.

Recent Developments: Utah's tobacco settlement money is governed by a 2000 law that placed a portion of the state's annual payments into an endowment called the Permanent Trust Fund and gave the legislature the authority to appropriate the remaining half through the annual budget process. The law also called for a referendum in which voters would decide how to spend interest earned from the endowment. In November 2000, by a margin of 61-39 percent, voters approved a measure that reinvested half the interest generated by the endowment and earmarked the remainder for health care programs.

Combined with funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, total spending on tobacco prevention and cessation for FY2009 will be $8.2 million, about the same amount that was spent in FY2008.