U.S. State and Local Issues

Spending on Tobacco Prevention: Texas

Last updated November 29, 2011

  FY2012 FY2011
State Rank 39 40
State Spending on Tobacco Prevention $5.5 million $11.4 million
% of CDC Recommended Spending
($266.3 million)		 2.0% 4.3%

Summary: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that Texas spend $266.3 million a year to have an effective, comprehensive tobacco prevention program.  Texas currently allocates $5.5 million a year for tobacco prevention and cessation.  This is 2.0% of the CDC’s recommendation and ranks Texas 39th among the states in the funding of tobacco prevention programs.  Texas’s spending on tobacco prevention amounts to 0.3% of the estimated $1.9 billion in tobacco-generated revenue the state collects each year from settlement payments and tobacco taxes.

Recent Developments: A 1999 law requires that all tobacco settlement payments be placed into several permanent endowments earmarked for a range of health and education programs. As Texas receives new funds as part of its settlement with the tobacco industry, the money is appropriated by the legislature on a biennial basis.

Texas is spending minimal amounts on tobacco prevention even though the state is receiving more tobacco-generated revenue than ever before as a result of a $1.00 cigarette tax increase in 2007, which brought  Texas’s cigarette tax to $1.41 a pack.

The biannual state budget for FY2012 and FY2013 appropriated $10.9 million from the tobacco settlement to tobacco prevention, which is approximately $5.5 million per year. This is half of what was spent on prevention in FY2010 and FY2011.

In addition, Texas is receiving $3.1 million in federal funds dedicated to tobacco prevention and control:

  • $1.9 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 12-month grant for the period beginning April 2011 (from annual appropriations).

  • $251,470 from the Prevention and Public Health Fund in the new health care reform law. 

  • $1,024,050 from the Food and Drug Administration for enforcement of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, including the provision regarding tobacco sales to minors.