Limitations regarding the use of quotes
The quotes provided here reflect statements from a specific decision. Accordingly, the International Legal Consortium (ILC) cannot guarantee that an appellate court has not reversed a lower court decision which may influence the applicability or influence of a given quote. All quotes have been selected based on the subjective evaluations undertaken by the ILC meaning that quotes provided here may not accurately or comprehensively represent a given court’s opinion or conclusion, as such quotes may have originally appeared alongside other negative opinions or accompanying facts. Further, some quotes are derived from unofficial English translations, which may alter their original meaning. We emphasize the need to review the original decision and related decisions before authoritatively relying on quotes. Using quotes provided here should not be construed as legal advice and is not intended to be a substitute for legal counsel on any subject matter in any jurisdiction. Please see the full limitations at https://www.tobaccocontrollaws.org/about.
In the 1990s, 46 states and several territories sued major tobacco companies to recover tobacco-related health care costs. In a settlement of these lawsuits, the states agreed to dismiss their claims. In exchange, the tobacco companies agreed to a series of marketing restrictions and to pay the states more than $200 billion over the first 25 years of the agreement. Specifically, the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) requires that participating tobacco companies (1) restrict their advertising, sponsorship, lobbying, and litigation activities, particularly those activities that are seen as targeting youth (including a ban on tobacco billboards and cartoon advertising and limits on event sponsorship); (2) dissolve three specific tobacco trade groups; (3) make public the documents that the participating tobacco companies had disclosed during the litigation; (4) fund an anti-tobacco education campaign through the creation of the American Legacy Foundation; and (5) make annual payments to the settling states forever.