At a local convenience store in Kentucky you can purchase a pack of Marlboro cigarettes for about $4.50. For the same price as a cheap lunch a teenager can continue his nicotine addiction for another day. Smokers in Massachusetts, however, can expect to pay more than ten dollars for a single pack of cigarettes. For ten dollars a pack the average Massachusetts smoker can expect to pay more than $3,000 a year. This is one of many reasons why Massachusetts' YRBS score (a scale for rating the number of smokers in high schools) is a low 16.0, giving Massachusetts the 10th lowest score out of 43 states assessed. Kentucky, however, came in last in the YRBS rankings with a rate of 26.0 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). This terrible last place finish is proof that the state of Kentucky is not doing enough to prevent and reduce tobacco use among teens and young adults. To do this, Kentucky must increase the state tax on tobacco products, effectively use tobacco tax revenue to fund smoking cessation programs, and improve the quality of anti-smoking advertising campaigns. Teens normally live financially on a very fixed income, commonly working part time for minimum wage. With cigarette prices at $4.50 a pack a high school student can afford to smoke regularly, but when you double that price a student will think twice about the value of cigarettes. Given the many health risks associated with smoking, purchasing cigarettes at any price is not a good choice. But if the price were higher, a student would be more likely not to smoke. By examining the above correlation between cigarette prices and the YRBS rate, one can easily come to the conclusion that a solution to prevent tobacco use among Kentucky adolescents would be... at the heart of the paper... negative aspects of smoking , the more unlikely they are to believe it (Paek). No matter how accurate the scientific evidence or how graphic the image, Kentucky's anti-smoking efforts will continue to fail if they bombard kids with campaigns focused on the negative aspects of smoking. The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids projects that 109,000 current students in Kentucky will die prematurely from smoking. Tobacco companies will continue to pour money into efforts that get children and students to smoke. The Kentucky government must break the mold of incompetent efforts and truly set the goal of dramatically reducing smoking among children. This is a tall order. However, by increasing the cigarette tax and using the revenue from this tax to finance effective smoking cessation programs and advertising campaigns, this goal can be achieved..