the war on smoking

The war on smoking has existed for decades. With the advent of more tenacious laws prohibiting smoking in public locations, and most recently Minnesota’s historic tobacco settlement, many actions against “Big Tobacco” have become more successful. Anti-smoking campaigns have become more confrontational, directly targeting tobacco companies in an effort to expose its manipulative and illegal marketing tactics. On the surface, last November's $206 billion settlement agreement between the tobacco companies and 46 states looks like a …showed first 75 words of 1435 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1435 total…that they intend to use the rest of the money to fill gaps in their budgets. New York City plans to use its share to clean up public schools, Los Angeles wants to repair its sidewalks, Louisiana will reduce the state debt, and Kentucky may use some of its money to help ailing tobacco farmers. Many of these states may find themselves running toothless anti-smoking campaigns - which is precisely what the tobacco industry wants.