Tobacco litigation pits 40 states with extensive revenues against tobacco companies who pay their lawyers by salary or by the hour. If tobacco companies can pay attorneys by the hour, so can the states. A third argument made by trial lawyers is that it is not fair to ask taxpayers to bear the risk of state lawsuits to recover Medicaid and other state funds allegedly lost due to tobacco use by citizens of the state. This argument rests on the assumption that the only way for a state to obtain money from a corporation is through a lawsuit. This is a false assumption.
States can and frequently do raise taxes.
Raising taxes requires no risky lawsuits, no expensive lawyers and is extremely unlikely to be challenged successfully in court. In the case of tobacco, which is presently taxed by every state, raising tobacco taxes also has negligible tax-collection costs since a structure for collecting tobacco taxes is already in place. The lawyers and their advocates argue that any rate not set by the free market is arbitrary. Anyone's opinion is subjective, but a good argument can be made that this rate is not too low. Doctors, of course, must complete more formal professional training than do lawyers.