By the time you enter college, everyone knows cigarettes can cause lung cancer, stink up your clothes and give you bad breath.

And thankfully we didn't need Penn State to tell us that through tobacco prevention programs.

That's why it's a good idea Pennsylvania's legislature has decided to reallocate funds for statewide prevention programs in favor of an insurance program, known as adultBasic, that benefits the state's poor.

The state of Pennsylvania, while dropping from seventh to 15th in the ranking of states that provide the most funding for tobacco-addiction prevention, is also making a 25 percent reduction in funding for prevention and cessation programs statewide in 2006.

University Health Services (UHS), which provides cessation programs for students who wish to quit smoking, will be losing money as a result of the reduction and will not be able to fund training and trips to conferences.

Although it is important that Penn State provides student smokers with some extra help to kick the habit, money should not be spent on preventing non-smokers from taking their first drag. We've all been alive for over 18 years; we know the risks of smoking.

The state must be careful, however, when taking money away from prevention programs that inform children of the risks of smoking. As long as these programs continue giving children the reasons to avoid tobacco addiction, less and less money will need to be spent on cessation programs later in life. A reasonable number of cessation programs for college students are a worthwhile investment and should remain in place.

But the state's decision to reroute $99,852 to an insurance program designed to help the poor is a far better use of state funds. After all, the decision to smoke is a personal choice. Living without insurance is rarely a decision people make willingly.

Students who aren't able to quit smoking using the cold turkey method will still be able to find help at UHS. But the list of students waiting for help to quit smoking is likely to be far shorter than the number of Centre County residents -- 1,054 -- waiting for an insurance through adultBasic.

Helping more than 1,000 local residents who are waiting for insurance rather than a handful of college students trying to quit smoking is more than worth cutting prevention and cessation programs.