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American Legacy Foundation® Comments on California Tobacco Control Program's Success in Reducing Adult Smoking Saving $86 Billion in Health Care Costs

8/25/2008

A Statement by Dr. Cheryl Healton, President and CEO: California’s Progress a Model for other States to Follow

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Legacy Foundation applauds the California Tobacco Control Program (CTCP) for achieving powerful progress in changing adult smoking behavior – reducing adult smoking and rapidly decreasing health care costs. New research presented in PLoS Medicine, a peer reviewed open access journal published by the Public Library of Science, shows that CTCP’s strategic approach designed to change social norms towards smoking and the tobacco industry is remarkably effective and generates rapid results.

These findings, achieved through an innovative methodology called co-integrating regression, mirror American Legacy Foundation findings from last fall indicating that effective smoking prevention and cessation programs could cut state Medicaid costs by 5.6 percent. The report, Saving Lives, Saving Money II, showed that America’s Medicaid system could spend nearly $10 billion less within five years if all Medicaid beneficiaries who smoke, quit. Numerous studies consistently confirm that states stand to save billions of dollars and millions of lives by investing in proven effective tobacco control programs. The results from California show that the health care savings from reducing smoking are probably even larger than previously estimated.

With such a profound return on investment, California’s commitment to tobacco control is a leading example of what to do – not only to save billions of dollars in a short period of time, but to give Americans the resources and help they seek to quit. There are 45 million Americans who smoke and each year, 70 percent report that they want to quit.

The time to fund state-wide programs is also more critical than ever. Smoking remains the country’s leading preventable cause of death and data released in November by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that smoking rates are no longer on the decline with 45.3 million adults reporting smoking in 2006. Adult smoking rates in the U .S. have stalled for a second year in a row, after a 7-year smoking decline. During the California Tobacco Control Program’s first 15 years it cost $1.8 billion and saved $86 billion, a 50-1 return on investment. These savings started to appear within 2 years of the beginning of the program and reached 7.3% of total health care costs at the end of 15 years.

As tobacco companies continue to spend billions of dollars in their marketing budgets, states continue to spend very little on smoking prevention and cessation. Only three states currently fund tobacco prevention programs at or above CDC recommended minimums. States spent $717.2 million on tobacco prevention in fiscal year 2008, just 45 percent of CDC recommended minimums. These facts point to a major gap and an enormous loss – given the return states can gain from a life-saving investment.

The California results show that tobacco control not only saves lives, it is a key element of medical care cost containment.

Open Access Journal, PLoS Medicine:

For the press only preview of the article, please visit http://www.plos.org/press/plme-05-08-glantz.pdf.

For the related image for press use, please visit http://www.plos.org/press/plme-05-08-glantz.jpg.

The American Legacy Foundation^® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco, through grants, technical assistance and training, partnerships, youth activism, and counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns. The foundation’s programs include truth^®, a national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as contributing to significant declines in youth smoking; EX^®, an innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use; and a nationally-renowned program of outreach to priority populations. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Visit http://www.americanlegacy.org/.

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Contact: Julia Cartwright, 202-454-5596, jcartwright@americanlegacy.org