In 1999, the Arizona State Legislature passed a comprehensive school-tobacco law that prohibits tobacco products on school grounds, inside school buildings, in school parking lots or playing fields, in school buses or vehicles and at off-campus school-sponsored events. The law applies to any K-12 public, charter or private school. Violation of the law is a petty offense. To document the extent to which Arizona public schools are in compliance with this legislation, the Arizona Cancer Center conducted the Arizona School Policy Survey as a project of the Tobacco Education and Prevention Program of the Arizona Department of Health Services. This survey was a follow-up to a similar survey completed in 1998.

Four major statewide "tools" to help manage growth and preserve open space have been put to work in Arizona over the past five years. These include the Arizona Preserve Initiative and the closely-related Proposition 303, as well as the Growing Smarter Act and its "addendum," Growing Smarter Plus. All four tools are based in large part on a concept known as "smart growth," which is generally considered to be a set of growth management measures that attempt to strike a balance among issues of economics, environment, and quality of life. Taken together, these four growth management tools make significant changes in the way that (a) city and county governments plan and regulate their lands, (b) citizens play a role in land use issues, (c) state trust lands are managed, and (d) open space may be acquired and preserved. Many of these changes will have long-term effects for the state. This paper provides a brief overview of each of the four growth management/open space tools, a preliminary accounting of major activities each one has stimulated, and a perspective on what can be expected for the future as expressed by a selection of growth planners and other leaders of growth management in Arizona.