This page contains a summary of Best Practices and Guiding Principles. Wyoming is at a crossroads with the rest of the nation in addressing the important health issues from tobacco. During the past five years we've seen unprecedented action to reduce the toll to our nation's health from tobacco. Without a meaningful program of public education, community and school-based prevention, marketing restrictions, and help for smokers who want to quit, kids most certainly will continue to begin smoking at alarming rates. Most unfortunate is that these decisions were made with misinformation behind them.
Few children understand the implications of addiction.
Our involvement with the settlement now compels us to do our best to change the trend of addiction and illness. The growing body of past experiences shows that the following elements must all be included in a comprehensive tobacco prevention program to maximize success. Activities that adequately and substantially address the problem are necessary. Conducted in isolation, each of these elements can reduce tobacco use, but done together they have a much more powerful impact. Because community involvement is essential to reducing tobacco use, a portion of the tobacco control funding should be provided to local government entities, community organizations, local businesses and other community partners.