Tobacco Free Amarillo is currently in its third year of operation and is funded by the Amarillo Hospital District from tobacco settlement funds to address the alarmingly high rate of youth and adult smoking.

Professionally-gathered data from the second year of Tobacco Free Amarillo indicated:

• Between 2002 and 2003, the percent of adolescents who reported current smoking decreased from 31.2% to 17.2% for the grades surveyed (grades 6, 8, 9 and 12).
• Current smokeless tobacco use decreased from 11.4% to 5.6%.
• The percent of students reporting daily smoking decreased from 9.6% to 5.2%.
• The frequency of daily use of smokeless tobacco decreased from 2.4% to 1.6%.

Tobacco Free Amarillo is a comprehensive approach to tobacco prevention and control, including media, school programs, community programs, cessation activities and evaluation. Law enforcement activities are carried out through separate grants.

Purpose of Tobacco Free Amarillo is to 1) Achieve high community impact, 2) Create change in systems, organizations and policies, 3) Use proven strategies that are sustainable over time, and 4) Track performance goals. Goals are as follows: 1) Reduce tobacco use by adolescents by 19%, 2) Reduce tobacco use by adults by 12%, 3) Increase the average age of first use of tobacco by adolescents from 12 years of age to 17 years, and 4) Increase abstinence from cigarettes among pregnant women by 12%.

During the first two years of the program, the Amarillo Area Foundation and Harrington Foundation funding was designated to pay for broadcast rights and copyrights for existing media materials, which included television and radio commercials and billboard artwork. The significance of the AAF funding is that this investment of $22,866 allowed the Tobacco Free Amarillo project to secure an additional $45,732 in media exposure because media organizations matched our media purchases with 100% bonuses.

By stretching the Tobacco Free Amarillo media budget in this way, we were able to reach the $1 per capita media expenditure that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends be spent for a tobacco prevention and control media program. (Our media budget was $110,000 and our target population was approximately 220,000.)