U.S. State and Local Issues

Spending on Tobacco Prevention: Utah

Last updated November 29, 2011

  FY2012 FY2011
State Rank 12 13
State Spending on Tobacco Prevention $7.2 million $7.1 million
% of CDC Recommended Spending
($23.6 million)		 30.4% 30.2%

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 allocates $7.2 million a year for tobacco prevention and cessation.  This is 30.4% of the CDC’s recommendation and ranks Utah 12th among the states in the funding of tobacco prevention programs.  Utah’s spending on tobacco prevention amounts to 4.9% of the estimated $147 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 and gave the legislature the authority to appropriate the remaining half through the annual budgets. The law also called for a referendum in which voters would decide how to spend interest earned from the endowment. In November 2000, voters approved a measure that reinvested half the interest generated by the endowment and earmarked the remainder for health care programs.

In FY2012, the legislature and Governor Gary Herbert (R) allocated $7.2 million in state funds for the state’s tobacco prevention program, about the same amount as in FY2011.  

The state is receiving more tobacco-generated revenue than ever before a result of a $1.005 per pack cigarette tax increase, to $1.70 per pack, and increases in the tax rates on other tobacco products, enacted on July 1, 2010,. Nonetheless, Utah spends less than the CDC-recommended amount on tobacco prevention and cessation.
In addition, Utah is receiving $1.6 million in federal funds dedicated to tobacco prevention and control:

  • $1.2 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).

  • $91,130 from the Prevention and Public Health Fund in the new health care reform law. 

  • $272,145 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.