Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Boasts

In a statement congratulating Senator-elect Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota) on her election, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids praised her for "protecting her state's kids and health from the tobacco industry" by being a leader in achieving the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between 46 states and the four major tobacco companies.

According to the statement: "In electing Heidi Heitkamp as their next U.S. senator, the voters of North Dakota have chosen a true champion in protecting her state's kids and health from the tobacco industry. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids congratulates Senator-elect Heitkamp on her victory and looks forward to working with her to win the fight against tobacco use, the nation's number one cause of preventable death. As North Dakota's attorney general, Senator-elect Heitkamp was a leader in achieving the 1998 state tobacco settlement, which held the tobacco industry accountable for its deadly products and deceptive actions and restricted some of the industry's most harmful marketing practices."

The Rest of the Story

Far from protecting her state's kids and health from the tobacco industry and holding the tobacco industry accountable for its deadly products and deceptive actions, former Attorney General Heitkamp actually protected the profits of Big Tobacco and released the companies from accountability by leading the efforts to immunize the companies from further lawsuits in return for a hefty monetary payoff.

From the perspective of the tobacco companies, the Master Settlement Agreement was brilliant. The states are now fiscally dependent on a steady stream of cigarette revenues. Any substantial drop in cigarette smoking threatens the state's fiscal situation. Thus, there is no incentive to take any action that will substantially reduce cigarette sales. Perhaps this is why we haven't seen many major anti-tobacco initiatives at the state level since the Master Settlement Agreement was signed. We've seen mostly minor initiatives that dilly dally around the margins, but very few which actually aim to put a major dent in cigarette sales.

Big Tobacco could not have scripted a happier (more favorable) ending to the Master Settlement Agreement saga. If they had sat down and tried to figure out a way to institutionalize tobacco consumption and to find a way to make the states become dependent upon tobacco sales for their economic survival, they could not have come up with a better scheme than this.