The American Lung Association is disappointed that the states have settled with the tobacco industry. The deal concedes far too much to Big Tobacco and provides far too little to protect public health. Fortunately, the war against the disease and death caused by tobacco use is not over.
Skirmishes continue on battlefields all across the nation.
From state house to courthouse, from city hall to the halls of Congress, we have the tobacco industry on the run. The industry still faces lawsuits from health insurance providers, labor union health plans, class actions brought by injured smokers, and thousands of individual cases. Local ordinances to provide smoke-free environments were only dreams a decade ago but are becoming the norms today. Earlier this month, voters in Oregon and Maine reaffirmed their smoke-free laws despite an onslaught of tobacco industry cash that funded their opposition. The Minnesota settlement forced the release of thousands of documents that have detailed a decades-long trail of deceit by the tobacco industry.