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A Taste Of The Future?

Florida's tobacco settlement may be a preview of other state deals; poll finds public is split on national settlement

tobacco settlement

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Aug. 26) -- Florida's landmark $11.3 billion settlement of the state's lawsuit against tobacco companies is giving industry leaders a taste of what they can expect if the proposed national deal is delayed or scuttled.

The Florida settlement included a number of advertising restrictions and other public-health measures that went far beyond the cash-only deal struck with Mississippi last month. And Texas' attorney general is up next.

"That they gave more to Florida than to Mississippi means they've got to give more to Texas than to Florida," James Tierney, a consultant to the suing states, told The Associated Press.

President Bill Clinton will spend the first week of September looking over his administration's review of the $368 billion national deal arrived at by 39 attorneys general in June.

tobacco

The individual settlements are a no-lose proposition for the states. If Clinton's version of the national settlement makes its way through Congress and becomes law, it will supersede state arrangements.

States will get similarly large cash payouts, but additional public health restrictions would not be affected. And such national-deal provisions as labeling requirements go farther than can any deal cut by a state.

But if the national deal is killed, states will have open season on tobacco, with each expecting to wring a little more out of the industry than the last state.

Some attorneys general are relishing the chance to get their own teeth on the tobacco industry. Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III says, "Rather than a signal to enact a flawed national settlement, this is a signal to push harder for disclosure of the full truth."

Even states that have already settled will make out in the process. Mississippi's deal was "enhanced" by the public-health provisions in the Florida deal, said Trey Bobinger, a spokesman for the state's attorney general, Michael Moore.

"We had a 'most-favored-nation' clause in our settlement agreement, which said if any subsequent state negotiated anything beyond what we had, that we'd get it too," Bobinger said.

Industry concessions include replacing billboard ads promoting tobacco with anti-smoking messages and restricting cigarette sales by vending machines. Next week, Bobinger said, the state may begin removing billboards advertising tobacco products near schools.

The stock market's positive reaction to the Florida deal worries some critics of the tobacco industry. "Any time something like this happens ... and their stock goes up, I think you have to look at it in a very wide perspective," former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop told ABC's "Good Morning America." "Tobacco gained a lot by not having to go through a court procedure."

Poll finds Americans split

A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll finds America split on whether the national agreement should go into effect, with 45 percent favoring it and 43 percent opposing.

The poll of 1,014 adult Americans was conducted Aug. 22-25, with most interviews taken before the Florida tobacco settlement was made public. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.

Mississippi's money: in the bank

Mississippi's first payment from the tobacco companies, $170 million, made more than a month ago, has been sitting in South Trust Bank, earning about $400,000 a month in interest.

"We're waiting, prudently, we think, to see what Congress does with the national settlement," said Mississippi's Bobinger.

The national settlement could change the amount of money the state ultimately gets, he said, though, if no national accord is reached, the state's deal -- $3.6 billion over 25 years -- will stick.

The court and the state legislature will ultimately determine how the money is spent, Bobinger said. But the legislature is out until January.

"The court may set general parameters," said Bobinger. "Within them, our legislature will appropriate the money. But no detailed plan has been worked out yet."

But, he said, Mississippi is still anxious for a national settlement to be passed. Only a national settlement can grant the Food and Drug Administration jurisdiction over nicotine, ban cigarette ads from magazines, or penalize tobacco companies if "lookback" studies show that the incidence of teen smoking does not fall.


In Other News:

Tuesday Aug. 26, 1997

A Taste Of The Future
Brutality Case Stirs N.Y. Mayor's Race
Christian Coalition Targets Religious Persecution
No Subpoenas Yet On Chung-O'Leary Issue

E-mail From Washington:
U.S. Putting Pressure On Milosevic





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