State-level Miss America pageants have partnered with tobacco company R.J. Reynolds, which provides $5,000 annually to state winners to promote the company's stop-smoking program.

The Associated Press reported March 16 that health groups have slammed the National Association of Miss America State Pageants for the relationship.

"R.J. Reynolds is trying to use partnerships with reputable organizations like the Miss America State Pageants to create the illusion that it has changed and is part of the solution to the tobacco problem," wrote Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, in a letter to the association.

Myers and others are asking that 29 state pageant organizations end their ties to the tobacco company. An R.J. Reynolds spokesperson said that the company gives the money for the Miss America contestants to visit middle schools and distribute antismoking materials. "We're being villanized for doing something that's the right thing to do," said spokesperson Carolyn Brinkley.

Lamar Mullican, board president of the National Association of Miss America State Pageants, said the R.J Reynolds money has "been a godsend program for the pageant program. We've had absolutely no complaints on it whatsoever."

But Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, said, "None of the tobacco-prevention programs designed by tobacco companies have been effective at preventing youth smoking."

Heather French Henry, a former Miss America from Kentucky, said that beauty queens can convince kids to avoid smoking. "When you take the crown even into a middle school or a high school, these kids shut up and listen," she said.