Has the California Tobacco Control Program Reduced Smoking?

Abstract

EARLY PUBLIC HEALTH approaches to reducing population smoking prevalence emphasized interventions aimed at individual smokers.¹ However, the results of numerous studies indicated that too few individuals were reached for such a strategy to effect a measurable reduction in population smoking prevalence.² The varied successes of several comprehensive, community and statewide tobacco control programs^3-7 led to this approach being widely recommended as the most appropriate way to reduce tobacco use in the United States.^2,8 Starting in 1989, the California Tobacco Control Program introduced the use of increased tobacco excise taxes to continuously fund a large, coordinated statewide effort to reduce the health costs associated with smoking.⁹