Tobacco Marketing Restrictions in the Multistate Attorneys General Settlement: Is this Good Public Policy?

Abstract

After the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a rule to regulate the marketing of tobacco to children, states negotiated two settlements of their health care reimbursement lawsuits with the tobacco industry. In this article, the author examines the marketing restrictions contained in the second agreement now being adopted into state law. These restrictions are compared with those in the earlier, aborted settlement, the FDA-proposed rule, and the recently adopted European Union directive. The article concludes by suggesting that negotiating a single agreement, offered to virtually all the states, that contains both damage payments and marketing restrictions does not lead to sound public policy decisions.

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