Legal Battles

In the mid- and late 1990s the tobacco industry in the United States faced grave legal and financial threats. Under heavy attack from states seeking compensation to recover costs for smoking-related health care, from the federal government seeking further regulation, and from individual smokers seeking damages for illness, the major cigarette producers sought ways to protect themselves. After a tentative $368 billion settlement (1997) with state attorneys and plaintiffs' lawyers fell apart, lawsuits were brought against the industry by Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Texas; the suits were settled for $40 billion, to be paid over 25 years. In 1998 the remaining 46 states accepted a $206 billion plan to settle lawsuits they had filed against the industry. Individual lawsuits continued to pose potential significant financial threats. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which came into affect in 2005 and has been ratified by more than 55 nations, seeks to reduce the number of tobacco-related illnesses and deaths by such measures as banning tobacco product advertising and putting warning labels on tobacco packaging. The treaty has been signed, but not ratified, by the United States.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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