The State of Connecticut has received its annual payment from the “Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.”
This year the amount totals more than $124.6 million.
The payment was announced Thursday by Attorney General William Tong, who also called on the state to increase its spending to prevent youth smoking and vaping and to assist Connecticut residents of any age in their efforts to stop smoking or vaping.
In 1998, attorneys general from 52 states and territories reached a settlement with the four largest tobacco companies, settling suits filed by dozens of states.
The settlement directs payments to the states and territories in perpetuity so long as cigarettes are sold by tobacco companies participating in the agreement. The payments are intended to compensate participating states for health care costs that the states pay on behalf of residents suffering from smoking-related illnesses.
To date, Connecticut has received $3,104,052,598 from tobacco companies under the agreement.
The settlement imposed strong new restrictions on tobacco advertising and marketing practices, including prohibitions on billboards, cartoons, branded merchandise, and sports sponsorships. The companies were forced to eliminate practices that obscured tobacco’s health risks and were required to establish and fund the Truth Initiative, an advocacy organization dedicated to “achieving a culture where all youth and young adults reject tobacco.”
The settlement also carries ongoing obligations for the settling states, including ensuring that nonparticipating tobacco companies make mandatory escrow payments for the states’ benefit. If Connecticut were not to “diligently” perform its contractual enforcement obligations, it could potentially lose its MSA money. In Connecticut, much of the required MSA enforcement work is done by a small, committed group of lawyers and staff within the Office of the Attorney General, who have been funded through a designated Master Settlement Agreement enforcement fund, created in 2014. That fund has now been exhausted. These same assistant attorneys general have also been instrumental in the $438.5 million multistate settlement with JUUL over the company’s misrepresentations and youth-targeted marketing, the settlement forcing the U.S. Postal Service to stop delivering foreign contraband cigarettes, multistate efforts urging FDA to ban flavored e-cigarettes, and efforts urging film and TV producers and streaming services to curb tobacco imagery in popular media.
At Attorney General Tong’s urging, tobacco enforcement funding for the Office of the Attorney General was restored in the budget approved by the legislature’s Appropriations Committee last week.
Attorney General Tong has also supported increasing the use of settlement dollars to fund community-based tobacco and nicotine control and prevention efforts. The revenue package approved by the legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee last week restores the state’s current $12 million annual commitment for such efforts in each of the next two fiscal years.
“The multistate tobacco settlement has had profound impacts on public health—dramatically driving down youth smoking across the United States. But our work is not done. Look no further than our recent settlement with vaping giant JUUL Labs and Big Tobacco’s efforts there to lure new generations of youth into a lifetime of nicotine addiction. We must remain vigilant, and to do that, we need to invest—both in enforcement here within the Office of the Attorney General—and in the public health experts and advocates leading efforts on the ground to curb harmful tobacco and nicotine use. I am grateful to the leadership of the Appropriations and Finance Committees for maintaining the state’s commitments in both these areas,” said Attorney General Tong.