ATLANTA --- Lamar DeLoach used to be the biggest tobacco farmer in America.

He cultivated 1,000 acres of tobacco a decade ago at his farm in Candler, Evans and Bulloch counties. Now, he's down to 100 acres of tobacco.

Mr. DeLoach is moving toward peanuts and other crops -- a trend the former president of the Tobacco Growers Association of Georgia said is prevalent.

"That, here again, is more due to economics than it is smoking bans or prices or whatever," Mr. DeLoach said.

Georgia farmers' move away from tobacco has little to do with the 3-year-old law prohibiting smoking in public places, say experts and cigarette opponents.

The lack of collateral damage is all the more reason to wage war against smoking, supporters of tougher measures argue.

The state's spending on programs aimed at stopping smoking is a sliver of what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends, even as 10,000 Georgians die from smoking every year and the state spends an estimated $1.8 billion annually on tobacco-related health-care costs.

Three years of ban

It has been three years since anti-smoking groups celebrated their landmark victory: Gov. Sonny Perdue's reluctant signing of a measure banning indoor smoking in most public places except bars and restaurants that don't serve minors and small businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

Since the bill went into effect July 1, 2005, Sen. Don Thomas said he's heard nothing but praise from his constituents.

"They really enjoy the freedom from second-hand smoke," said Mr. Thomas, R-Dalton, who worked to pass the smoking ban.

Even some businesses not forced to comply with the state ban do so anyway, said Eric Bailey, a grass-roots advocacy manager for the American Cancer Society. But he said that could change quickly.

"In the long term, I think that the unintended consequence of not going back and improving upon (the ban) is that trends only last so long," he said. "And, eventually, if you don't have a law in place that mandates 100 percent smoke-free air, there will be new establishments that come up and decide that the trend is kind of old, and they're going to be a smoking establishment. And once again, public health will be threatened."

Lack of spending?

Anti-smoking advocates are frustrated that the state is spending a minute portion of available funding for smoking prevention and cessation programs.

The CDC recommends Georgia spend $116.5 million each year on those programs. The state received $248 million in tobacco tax revenue in the 2005-06 spending year and $143.2 million in the latest installment of a decade-old legal settlement with cigarette companies.

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, the state spent $2.2 million on those programs, according to a report by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Even under a smaller CDC recommendation in place at the time, Georgia was scheduled to spend just 5.3 percent of that figure and ranked 48th among the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

The lack of funding is part of what led Rep. Mark Butler, R-Carrollton, to propose a measure in the last legislative session to set up a panel of lawmakers, public-health advocates and medical experts to review the spending on the legal payments and suggest changes.

The measure passed the House and Senate, but Mr. Perdue vetoed it, saying Georgians had plenty of opportunities to protest if they didn't like the way the settlement funds were being used.

On the farm

Few seem to think tobacco farmers are hurt much by the state's efforts, however robust, to keep people from lighting up.

Many farmers initially benefited from the legal settlement, which provided a transitional fund to help them ease into other crops, and a buyout of tobacco quotas approved by Congress.

Mr. Thomas said there are always options for tobacco farmers. "Their farmland should really be put to productive use for something that is healthy rather than something that kills people," he said.

That's happening, Mr. DeLoach said, but not because of changes in the law. Rather, it's because energy and fertilizer prices are beginning to make tobacco less profitable when compared to food products, whose value is soaring.