COLUMBIA --- Ten years after the tobacco settlement, South Carolina has slid back to its worst-in-the-nation status in what it spends to keep people from smoking, according a report released Tuesday by a coalition of public health groups.

South Carolina will collect $114 million this year from the tobacco settlement and taxes, but it is the only state that doesn't plan to spend state money for tobacco prevention and cessation.

A $1 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will pay for an 800-number quit line and some education in the schools, state officials said.

The report ranks states by comparing how much they spend in both federal and state money to what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends.

This year, the federal agency recommends South Carolina spend $62 million. It has issued recommendations since the 1998 tobacco settlement between the industry and states.

For the past two years, South Carolina contributed $2 million to smoking cessation and prevention, boosting the state to 38th in the rankings in 2006 and 45th in 2007. But the allocation was eliminated with the economic downturn and a failed attempt to increase cigarette taxes.

Before 2006-07, the state spent nothing for several years.

The public health groups releasing the report called on lawmakers to raise the lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax, which has stood at 7 cents a pack for 31 years.

Earlier this year, the Legislature approved a plan that would have raised the tax by 50 cents and put most of the money toward health care, with $5 million a year going to smoking cessation and prevention. But the plan died after legislators were unable to override the veto of Gov. Mark Sanford.

Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said the governor wants to reduce the health care costs of smoking and is not opposed to prevention programs. He noted the governor successfully pushed in August to charge state employees who smoke a monthly fee on their health insurance plans, set to begin in January 2010.