Kentucky received $94.4 million for this year’s Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) payment, Attorney General Russell Coleman announced last week in a news release.
“Once again, I’m proud to bring home these resources to invest in Kentucky and our rural communities,” Coleman said in the release.
The commonwealth has received $2.96 billion from the nationwide agreement with cigarette manufacturers since 1998. The historic agreement resolved state lawsuits against the tobacco companies for Medicaid and other health costs related to smoking. In addition to the annual compensation, the release says MSA works to reduce underage smoking and decrease new smokers.
Under the settlement terms, participating cigarette manufacturers must make a yearly payment to the states based on an annually adjusted rate per number of cigarettes sold each year.
The presumption was that much of the settlement would go toward tobacco prevention, but it hasn’t.
Kentucky designated half of the funds for agricultural diversification, with grants being distributed by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. The remaining funds are split evenly between the Early Childhood Development Fund and the Kentucky Health Care Improvement Fund.
Further, Kentucky’s recently passed two-year budget makes cuts to tobacco cessation in the next two fiscal years.
Using MSA money from the state’s General Fund, the new state budget allocates nearly $1.8 million in the 2026-2027 fiscal year and about $1.6 million in the 2027-2028 fiscal year for smoking cessation efforts, down from $1.9 million in the 2024-2025 fiscal year and $2 million in the 2025-2026 fiscal year budgets.
This is far less than the $56.4 million recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for smoking cessation programs in Kentucky.
“Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in Kentucky, including 37.2% of cancer deaths, and Kentucky has the second-highest smoking-attributable cancer death rate in the country,” Doug Hogan, government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said in a news release. “The need for robust investments in tobacco prevention and cessation programs in the commonwealth has never been greater.
Bills in both the Senate and House this year aimed at putting the remaining Juul settlement money (about $6 million) into prevention and cessation efforts for youth were not successful.
