South Carolinians face many crises, and the state generally is willing to help. The state willingly steps up to help prevent epidemics of AIDS and flu and the carnage caused by traffic accidents. Yet, it abandons its responsibility to help thwart the greatest epidemic to ever hit South Carolina -- smoking.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the 2000 census, more South Carolinians die each year of smoking-related illnesses than die from AIDS, liver disease, breast cancer, car accidents and several other causes combined. Data show that 5,992 people died last year from smoking-related illnesses. That is nearly twice as many as a select group of causes, including murder, suicide, infant death, illegal drugs and fires.

For its penny-pinching effort, South Carolina has joined five others in a shameful citation by the Washington-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids as the five states and the District of Columbia that spend the least to eradicate smoking among the population.

In 2001, the state used $1.7 million to start the only program of its kind in the United States to educate teenagers about the ills of smoking. The state earmarked $5.5 million over the next three years. This year lawmakers didn't earmark even a dime. The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control managed to move around $400,000 to continue the Rage Against the Haze program, and the CDC gave the state a $1.1 million grant.

Mississippi, on the other hand, spends about $20 million a year on a smoking cessation program through Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi. Results show a dramatic decrease in the use of tobacco. Use dropped by 28 percent among high school students and 47 percent among public middle school students.

South Carolina's $912 million windfall in a settlement with tobacco companies was put in four trust funds, with almost three quarters of it dedicated to the Health Care Endowment fund to finance a prescription drug program for seniors, Medicaid expansion and tobacco prevention programs.

Unfortunately, programs to convince teens to forego the use of tobacco, and to help teens and adults who have become addicted to kick one of the most devastating habits in the United States, got short shrift as the state doled out the tobacco settlement money.

According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, 90,000 students will die in the years ahead because they started smoking when they were teenagers.

Gov. Mark Sanford and the Republican-controlled legislature say they want all government agencies to examine budgets and look for ways to best invest taxpayers' money. It would seem that a major investment in the future of South Carolinians would be programs to help people kick this bad habit in order to prevent the hemorrhaging of more than $800 million on smoking-induced disease.

The least the state could do would be to increase the state cigarette tax and use part of the money to pay for antismoking programs at the minimum recommended by the CDC. South Carolina's 7 cents a pack is the fourth lowest cigarette tax in the nation, and it hasn't been changed since 1977. Increasing the cigarette tax in a state where at least 25 percent of adults and 36 percent of high school students smoke could have positive benefits.