SC Tobacco Collarborative news conference

The South Carolina Hospital Association and its partners in the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative will hold a news conference to release the results of a new statewide cigarette tax poll and to discuss the public health community's position on increasing the state cigarette tax at 10:30 a.m., Jan. 14 in the first floor rotunda of the South Carolina State House.

(Enter the State House from the public entrance facing Sumter Street and turn left into the lobby.)

SC ranks last in tobacco prevention spending

Ten years after the tobacco settlement, a national report ranks South Carolina as worst in the nation in what it spends to keep people from smoking. A coalition of public health groups released the report of states' tobacco prevention funding Tuesday.

The report by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and the American Heart Association says South Carolina will collect $114 million this year from the tobacco settlement and taxes. South Carolina is scheduled to spend $1 million on tobacco prevention, which is 1.6 percent of the $62.6 million recommended by the CDC. The money will be from a federal grant.

The president for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids called South Carolina the most disappointing state in the nation when it comes to protecting kids from tobacco. South Carolina legislators are continued to ask to raise the lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax - still at 7 cents a pack.