Iowa Highlights

Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States and in Iowa. To address this enormous toll, the American Lung Association calls for the following actions to be taken by Iowa’s elected officials:

The Iowa Tobacco Prevention Alliance (ITPA), of which the American Lung Association is a member, worked successfully with partners to defeat Senate File 2385, a bill to eliminate the 24-year-old Iowa Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Commission. However, the provision to absolve the Commission was added into another bill, House File 2673 at the end of legislative session, passed and signed into law. That bill also eliminates the longstanding Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Division that was formerly under the Iowa Department of Public Health and merged it under a newly formed Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, Behavioral Health Division. The Governor also signed a bill into law (House File 2698) that eliminates dedicated funding for the state’s tobacco prevention program. ITPA continues to engage partners to ensure that the reorganization of Iowa health divisions does not threaten the decades of progress of Iowa’s tobacco prevention program.

Legislation pushed by the tobacco industry to establish an e-cigarette product directory that is tied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Premarket Tobacco Product Application process, House File 2677 was signed into law in May 2024. ITPA worked to inform legislators that “directory bills” have been introduced across the country since 2020 by major tobacco companies and that these pieces of legislation are a distraction from evidence-based policies with proven public health benefits, such as higher tobacco taxes, licensing of nicotine and tobacco retailers, and restricting the sale of flavored tobacco products. The industry also introduced legislation to exempt heated tobacco products from tobacco taxes, which fortunately did not advance.

In fiscal year 2024, partnerships from 24 out of 99 of Iowa’s counties submitted tobacco free/nicotine free policies for a local business, childcare, school, outdoor event, or parks with 92% covering all types of tobacco and nicotine, applying to everyone (employees, students, visitors, etc.) always, including any company vehicles, and applying to all enclosed areas. These comprehensive tobacco free/nicotine free policies go above and beyond the Iowa Smokefree Air Act requirements, which only covers cigarettes, not e-cigarettes or other forms of tobacco or nicotine.

Adequately funding evidence-based tobacco control programs is effective at preventing and reducing tobacco use. Iowa has made progress in reducing the tobacco burden, so it is concerning that the state’s tobacco prevention program was removed from state statute. Iowa’s cigarette tax was last increased in 2007 and currently, there is no excise tax on alternative nicotine products. Increasing the price of tobacco products would produce tremendous public health benefit and is even more critical now in Iowa. In 2025, the state must increase cigarette taxes and finally define and tax alternative nicotine products as tobacco products. It is also crucial that Iowa use this tax revenue to fund initiatives to prevent tobacco addiction in future generations.