Yesterday's House budget proposal intends to ELIMINATE the Health and Wellness Trust Fund(HWTF), the agency that funds the Tobacco Reality Unfiltered (TRU) Youth program, as of this December. Legislators plan to use this funding to fund other programs, while ignoring the huge tobacco toll in North Carolina. The Health and Wellness Trust Fund was established with Tobacco Settlement funds (not taxpayer dollars) and was intended to help states address the health and financial toll of tobacco. The North Carolina General Assembly established the HWTF to protect those funds and use them as intended for health purposes, and tobacco prevention and cessation in particular. Eliminating the Health and Wellness Trust Fund would be against the original purpose of the Master Settlement Agreement-- leaving North Carolinians without access to tobacco prevention and cessation resources. Abolishing the HWTF will halt the significant success HWTF programs have seen in the areas of tobacco prevention and cessation and the success they hope to replicate in the area of obesity prevention. Both issues are the most critical and pressing health issues facing North Carolina’s youth today as the top two preventable causes of death. Since 2003, when the HWTF began funding teen tobacco use prevention and cessation efforts (including local programs and an evidence-based, highly effective media campaign), North Carolina has seen the following health benefits: There are 53,000 fewer youth smokers than in 2003 when HWTF tobacco prevention programs began. The middle school smoking rate in North Carolina has been cut by more than half since HWTF efforts began (from 9.3% to 4.3%), and the high school smoking rate has dropped by a third (from 27.3% to 16.7%). (Data based on North Carolina Youth Tobacco Survey, 2009); These are the lowest rates ever recorded in our state’s history. Thanks to the efforts of the HWTF, over 28,000 people enrolled in QuitlineNC- the ONLY free cessation resource for smokers in the entire state. For every $1 that HWTF invested in its programs, approximately $2.54 is generated in financial benefits for our State.