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• A Decade of Broken Promises: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement Ten Years Later 

On November 23, 1998, 46 states settled their lawsuits against the nation’s major tobacco companies to recover tobacco-related health care costs, joining four states -- Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Minnesota -- that had reached earlier, individual settlements.

These settlements require the tobacco companies to make annual payments to the states in perpetuity, with total payments estimated at $246 billion over the first 25 years.�

The tobacco settlements presented the states with a historic opportunity and unprecedented sums of money to attack the enormous public health problem posed by tobacco use in the United States.

Ten years later, this report finds that most states have failed to keep their promise to spend a significant portion of the settlement funds on programs to protect kids from tobacco addiction and help smokers quit.

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