States spend anti-smoking money on everything but

USA Today reports:

With news cameras clicking a decade ago, state officials proudly touted their success in securing settlements worth $246 billion over 25 years from cigarette-makers. The money, the attorneys general vowed, would go to prevent smoking, particularly among teens.

Today, most of those promises have, so to speak, gone up in smoke.

States are spending their tobacco settlement money on everything from building schools to cutting taxes — everything, that is, but smoking prevention.

There's nothing evil about states using money as they see fit, and it's hardly surprising that they'd raid a windfall. Even so, the actions represent a broken promise and shortsighted fiscal policy. Given smoking's severe health effects, cutting adult smoking rates and preventing a new generation from taking up the habit would shrink health care costs for years to come.

By diverting the settlement money, states have failed to counter Big Tobacco's aggressive marketing — just the opposite of what the tobacco settlements envisioned. The industry spent $13.4 billion in marketing in 2005, according to the Federal Trade Commission. That's $25 for every $1 the states spent on smoking prevention.

The state governments' concern was never running anti-smoking campaigns: just stealing money.