California spent $1.8 billion on statewide tobacco-control during the program's first 15 years but saved $86 billion in personal healthcare costs during the same timespan, according to a study from the University of California at San Francisco.

Consumer Affairs reported Aug. 29 that the study on the cost benefits of the California Tobacco Control Program estimated that the program prevented the consumption of 3.6 billion packs of cigarettes -- worth $9.2 billion -- in its first decade and a half. The return on investment in the program was 50-to-1, researchers said.

"The benefits of the program accrued very quickly and are very large," said Stanton Glantz, Ph.D., director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. "When adults stop smoking, you see immediate benefits in heart disease, with impacts on cancer and lung diseases starting to appear a year or two later."

Unlike many other prevention programs, California's tobacco-control initiative focused on changing social norm for adult smokers, not adolescents. Massive cost savings were seen even though funding for the program was trimmed in the mid-1990s. Researchers said that if funding had been sustained throughout the study period the state would have saved $156 billion.

The research was published in the Aug. 25, 2008 issue of the journal PLoS Medicine.