Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-02T17:25:36.520Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Is the Tobacco Settlement Constitutional?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Extract

In August 2005, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative “think tank” and advocacy organization, filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Louisiana against the Louisiana Attorney General challenging the legality of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). If successful, this lawsuit could lead to the unraveling of one of the most significant opportunities to improve public health in United States history.

Under the MSA, forty-six states agreed to end their litigation against the four largest tobacco companies in the United States, who in turn agreed to pay the states an estimated $206 billion. The CEI alleges that the MSA is unconstitutional. Specifically, the suit alleges that the MSA established a cartel under which the states receive monetary payments and the four major tobacco companies are insulated from price competition – and that this arrangement violates the Compact Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Type
Independent
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3.Google Scholar
Givel, M. and Glantz, S. A., “The ‘Global Settlement’ with the Tobacco Industry: 6 Years Later,” American Journal of Public Health 94, no. 2 (2004): 218224; Hu, Teh-Wei et al., “Reducing Cigarette Consumption in California: Tobacco Taxes vs. an Anti-Smoking Media Campaign,” American Journal of Public Health 85, no. 9 (1995): 1218–1222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeder, S. A., “Tobacco Control in the Wake of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement,” New England Journal of Medicine 350, no. 3 (2004): 293301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCaffree, D. R., “The ‘Big Tobacco’ Settlement: The ACCP Viewpoint,” Chest 113, no. 6 (1998): 16821683; National Association of Attorneys General, “Master Settlement Agreement,” available at <http://www.naag.org/backpages/naag/tobacco/msa/msa-pdf/1109185724_1032468605_cigmsa.pdf> (last visited August 22, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U. S. Steel Corp. v. Multistate Tax Commission, 434 U.S. 452 (1978).Google Scholar
Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U.S. 503 (1893); New Hampshire v. Maine, 426 U.S. 363 (1976).Google Scholar
Bode v. Barrett, 344 U.S. 583 (1953).Google Scholar
Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U.S. 433 (1981).Google Scholar
Bode v. Barrett, supra note 8.Google Scholar
U. S. Steel Corp. v. Multistate Tax Commission, supra note 6.Google Scholar
Star Scientific, Inc. v. Beales, 278 F.3d 339 (4th Cir. 2002).Google Scholar
Mariana v. Fisher, 226 F.Supp.2d 575 (M.D.Pa. 2002), certiorari denied 540 U.S. 1179 (2002); Star Scientific, Inc. v. Kilgore, 2002 U.S. LEXIS 5557 (2002).Google Scholar
Bode v. Barrett, supra note 8.Google Scholar
42 U.S.C. § 1396(d)(3)(B)(i-ii)(Supp. V 1999).Google Scholar
15 U.S.C. § 1334(b).Google Scholar
PTI, Inc. v. Philip Morris Inc., 100 F.Supp.2d 1179 (C.D.Cal.2000); Grand River Enter, Six Nations Ltd. V. Pryor, 2003 WL 22232974 (S.D.N.Y. 2003).Google Scholar
Healy v. The Beer Institute, 491 U.S. 324 (1989).Google Scholar
City of Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617 (1978).Google Scholar
Automated Salvage Transport Inc. v. Wheelabrator Entl. Sys., Inc., 155 F.3d 59 (2d Cir.1998).Google Scholar
U.S. Constitution, Amendment 10.Google Scholar
Tennessee Elec. Powe Co. v. TVA, 306 U.S. 118 (1939).Google Scholar
O'Connell, V., “States Siphon off Bigger Share of Tobacco-Settlement Money,” Wall Street Journal, October 2003, at 9; Schroeder, S. A. supra note 3.Google Scholar
Gross, C. P. et al., “State Expenditures for Tobacco-Control Programs and the Tobacco Settlement,” New England Journal of Medicine 347, no. 14 (2002): 10801086.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, “A Broken Promise to Our Children: The 1998 Tobacco Settlement Seven Years Later,” available at <http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/settlements/2006/fullreport.pdf> (last visited August 14, 2006).+(last+visited+August+14,+2006).>Google Scholar
Government Accountability Office, Tobacco Settlement: States Allocations of Fiscal Year 2004 and Expected Fiscal Year 2005 Payments, Report 05–312, March 2005.Google Scholar
Rajkumar, R. and Gross, C., “Tobacco-Control Dollars Went to Everything But,” Hartford Courant, December 31, 2002.Google Scholar
King, C. III and Siegel, M., “The Master Settlement Agreement with the Tobacco Industry and Cigarette Advertising in Magazines,” New England Journal of Medicine 345, no. 7 (2001): 504511; Chung, P. J. et al., “Youth Targeting by Tobacco Manufacturers Since the Master Settlement Agreement: The First Study to Document Violations of the Youth-Targeting Ban in Magazine Ads by the Three Top U.S. Tobacco Companies,” Health Affairs 21, no. 2 (2002): 254–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, supra note 25.Google Scholar
United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, available at <http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/SDP/view.asp?f=specialty/92015/> (last visited August 14, 2006).+(last+visited+August+14,+2006).>Google Scholar
Altria Group, Inc., “2004 Annual Report,” available at <http://www.altria.com/AnnualReport/ar2004/2004ar_05_0100.aspx> (last visited August 14, 2006).+(last+visited+August+14,+2006).>Google Scholar
Gross, C. P. et al., supra note 24.Google Scholar
Tauras, J. A. et al., “State Tobacco Control Spending and Youth Smoking,” American Journal of Public Health 95, no. 2 (2005): 338–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, supra note 25.Google Scholar
Farrelly, M. C. et al., “The Impact of Tobacco Control Program Expenditures on Aggregate Cigarette Sales: 1981–2000,” Journal of Health Economics 22, no. 5 (2003): 843859; See Hu, Teh-Wei et al., supra note 2; Pierce, J. P. et al., “Has the California Tobacco Control Program Reduced Smoking?” Journal of the American Medical Association 280, no. 10 (1998): 893–899.CrossRefGoogle Scholar