The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office has reached a $600 million settlement with major tobacco manufacturers, marking the largest resolution from the attorney general’s office in recent history, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell unveiled Monday.
“The country’s major tobacco manufacturers have pushed smoking products to young people for decades,” Campbell said. “This settlement is evidence of our ongoing commitment to hold these companies accountable for their actions that caused irreparable harm to public health and safety.”
The deal, made on behalf of the Commonwealth, arose out of a 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) in which major tobacco companies agreed to stop marketing their products to children, cease other harmful marketing practices, and pay states billions of dollars each year to offset medical expenses caused by smoking.
The MSA resolved litigation brought by 46 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories in the mid-1990s against major U.S. cigarette manufacturers Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard, plus the tobacco industry's trade associations, according to the nonprofit anti-tobacco advocate the Truth Initiative.
In addition to the $600 million that will be paid to the state’s general fund this fiscal year, the companies will make additional payments totaling tens of millions of dollars each year thereafter, according to the attorney general’s office.
Since the MSA deal in 1988, Massachusetts has received annual payments from the major tobacco companies totaling “hundreds of millions of dollars for past and ongoing medical costs related to smoking,” the attorney general’s office said.
Last year, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office announced a $462 million multistate settlement, $41 million of which went to Massachusetts, against Juul Labs Inc. for their role in the nationwide youth vaping epidemic.
In June, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it has rescinded the marketing denial orders (MDOs) for Juul Labs Inc. regarding all of the company’s products marketed in the United States.
Washington, D.C.-based Juul Labs issued the following statement regarding the FDA’s announcement:
“Today, the FDA rescinded its June 2022 marketing denial orders (MDOs) for the Juul System and placed our applications back into scientific review. We appreciate the FDA’s decision and now look forward to re-engaging with the agency on a science- and evidence-based process to pursue a marketing authorization for Juul products. We remain confident in the quality and substance of our applications and believe that a full review of the science and evidence will demonstrate that our products meet the statutory standard of being appropriate for the protection of public health. These products (the Juul device and Virginia tobacco and menthol Juulpods in 5% and 3% nicotine concentration) will remain on the market during this review.”
The FDA said that rescission of the MDOs is not an authorization or a denial and does not indicate whether the applications are likely to be authorized or denied, but rather “rescission of the MDOs returns the applications to pending status, under substantive review by the FDA. The FDA’s regulations significantly limit what the agency can disclose regarding the content of pending applications.
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