$1.8 Billion in Tobacco Control Saves Calif. $86 Billion, Study Says
September 2, 2008
California spent $1.8 billion on statewide tobacco-control during the
program's first 15 years but saved $86 billion in personal healthcare costs
during the same timespan, according to a study from the University of
California at San Francisco.
Consumer Affairs reported Aug. 29 that the study on the cost benefits of the
California Tobacco Control Program estimated that the program prevented the
consumption of 3.6 billion packs of cigarettes -- worth $9.2 billion -- in
its first decade and a half. The return on investment in the program was
50-to-1, researchers said."The benefits of the program accrued very quickly and are very large," said
Stanton Glantz, Ph.D., director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control
Research and Education. "When adults stop smoking, you see immediate
benefits in heart disease, with impacts on cancer and lung diseases
starting to appear a year or two later."
Unlike many other prevention programs, California' tobacco-control
initiative focused on changing social norm for adult smokers, not
adolescents. Massive cost savings were seen even though funding for the
program was trimmed in the mid-1990s. Researchers said that if funding had
been sustained throughout the study period the state would have saved $156
billion.
The research was published in the Aug. 25, 2008 issue of the journal PLoS
Medicine.
