For the second year in a row, New Hampshire ranks last in the nation in funding programs to protect kids from tobacco, according to a national report released yesterday by a coalition of public health organizations. The state currently spends nothing on tobacco prevention programs. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that New Hampshire spend a minimum of $10.9 million a year. 

The annual report on states’ funding of tobacco prevention programs, titled “A Broken Promise to Our Children,” was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Lung Association.

The report finds that tobacco companies spend more than $141.7 million a year on marketing in New Hampshire, and that while New Hampshire this year will collect $177.7 million from the 1998 multi-state tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, the state will spend none of it on tobacco prevention.

The United States has significantly reduced smoking among both youth and adults over the past decade, but recent surveys indicate this progress has stalled.

According to the CDC’s most recent survey, 23 percent of high school students in the United States smoked in 2005, up from 21.9 percent in 2003. This turnaround follows a significant decline between 1997 and 2003 (the national high school smoking rate peaked at 36.4 percent in 1997). States have cut funding for tobacco prevention programs in recent years while tobacco companies have more than doubled their marketing spending since the 1998 settlement to a record level of at least $15.4 billion per year, the CDC says.