In Fiscal Year 2001 the legislature appropriated $6.4 million of the tobacco litigation settlement funds for a comprehensive tobacco control program based on the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This program has multiple components which are administered by the Departments of Health, Education, and Liquor Control.

The legislature also created the Vermont Tobacco Evaluation and Review Board to collaborate with the departments on the design and implementation of the program components, to oversee the conduct of an independent evaluation of the entire program, and to report annually to the governor and the legislature.

The goal of the program is to reduce adult and youth smoking rates by 50% by 2010. The components of the comprehensive program are detailed in the January 2000 publication of the Department of Health, "Vermont Best Practices To Cut Smoking Rates in Half by 2010". While each of these components is important in reducing smoking, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has demonstrated in its research that tobacco control programs which incorporate all of these components in a comprehensive, coordinated effort experience the greatest reductions in tobacco use.

The Tobacco Evaluation and Review Board is involved, to varying degrees, with the design and coordination of each of these components, as well as the planning and budgeting of the overall program. The Board has the central role in the independent evaluation of the program. A brief description of each program component is provided below and the organization with primary responsibility for implementation is identified.

Department of Health:

Community-based programs throughout the state aimed at actively engaging their communities in efforts to make not smoking the norm by discouraging young people from starting to smoke; linking adults and youth who want to quit with the resources to do so; promoting smoke-free homes, workplaces, and automobiles; and collaborating with school-based programs in their communities for mutual reinforcement of their messages and activities.

Countermarketing activities aimed at using the tools and techniques of effective marketing campaigns to reduce the demand for tobacco products and promote a tobacco-free lifestyle.

Cessation programs which help smokers quit by insuring the availability of affordable, accessible services, including a statewide, toll free quit smoking telephone line, referrals to a variety of local cessation counseling services, and distribution of cessation pharmaceutical coupons to those who are eligible.

Statewide programs to educate health care professionals about the effective role they play in counseling patients about tobacco use and prevention and statewide tobacco control programs targeted to special populations in the state.

Department of Education:

School-based programs aimed at creating a school climate where not smoking is the norm, anti-smoking policies are enforced, teachers are trained in and provide a research-based tobacco use prevention curriculum, programs are linked to community-based programs, and data are collected to assess the impact of these programs on tobacco-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

Department of Liquor Control:

Enforcement activities to ensure full compliance with all tobacco laws, prevent illegal sales of tobacco to minors, collect data to analyze the degree of compliance in each county.

Tobacco Evaluation and Review Board:

Surveillance and evaluation activities to collect and analyze data about the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of Vermont youth and adults related to tobacco use in general and program activities in particular in order for the independent evaluator to measure progress over time, assure that each of the program components listed above is focused on an effective strategy, monitor the level of coordination across program components, and compare Vermont smoking rates with national rates.