A Clearer View: Tobacco settlement made state healthier

This past week marked the 15th anniversary of Minnesota's tobacco settlement. Those of us involved in the trial will never forget it.

In 1994, as Minnesota attorney general, I joined forces with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota to bring an antitrust lawsuit against the tobacco companies. Mike Ciresi, Roberta Walburn and their stellar legal team agreed to partner with us. We had an active partnership, a dynamic team of assistant attorneys general working alongside a private legal team.

Efforts against Big Tobacco often are described as David-vs.-Goliath struggles, but I'll put it even more strongly. This time it was good vs. evil. The tobacco companies were considered invincible at that time. Our decision to take them on brought skepticism: Lake Wobegon against one of the most powerful industries in the world.

But we had the truth on our side. We focused on the most damning evidence possible: the words of the industry itself, contained in millions of pages of internal documents never before shown to the public.

What they exposed was shocking. They revealed an industry that knowingly produced products lethal to half the people who use them and that create injury to millions of others. Companies ignored their own research about tobacco's dangers and addictive properties; in fact, they were manipulating cigarette design to make them more addictive despite those dangers. Then they deliberately marketed them to every demographic group — even researching the best ways to get cigarettes into the hands of kids.

We fought to make sure those documents saw the light of day. It wasn't just about the trial. It was about the industry's deceptive business practices and the impact on the public's health. It was essential for people to understand who really was behind the problem of tobacco in this country. If companies create deadly products, engineer them to addict customers and use the best marketers in the world to sell them, what chance do any of us have?

During the trial, the industry used every trick in the book; but when it was over, industry leaders realized they could not win and delivered to Minnesota what was at the time the fourth-largest settlement in legal history.

After the trial, we were lucky to have giants of health advise us, including the late Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. With Dr. Koop, former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler, Dr. Richard Hurt of Mayo Clinic and others, we created ClearWay Minnesota, an organization dedicated to reducing the harm tobacco causes Minnesotans.

Through ClearWay, the settlement still funds programs like QUITPLAN Services, which have helped nearly 20,000 Minnesotans quit tobacco. It's allowing for new research, helping pass policies that reduce smoking (like smoke-free laws and cigarette tax increases), funding educational media campaigns and cultivating health leaders in diverse communities. Blue Cross' settlement portion also is used for health purposes, funding the successful Prevention Minnesota programs.

Since the settlement, Minnesota's smoking prevalence has dropped from 22.1 percent to 16.1 percent. That decline is attributable to initiatives of the organizations and their partners, including tobacco price increases, smoke-free policies, mass-media campaigns and cessation treatment.

What we did in the 1990s created a cultural shift that is continuing today across the country. Many thousands of people have quit, and whole generations of kids are less drawn to tobacco because of what we started. Thirty states are now smoke-free. Many young people don't know what it's like to have smoke in their workplaces or to breathe it at a restaurant.

What we did here in Minnesota also resonated throughout the world. We helped influence the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a global partnership of 344 nations to restrict tobacco advertising and adopt policies that decrease tobacco use.

It's true the tobacco industry is still with us, working to hook people. I am pleased Minnesota's health organizations are still taking them on, and I hope they always will. But when I see an ad directing smokers to QUITPLAN or to dine in a smoke-free restaurant, or when I hear about Minnesota's high health rankings, I remember how far we've come. And I can't help smiling and feeling proud that we helped make Minnesota — and the world — healthier.

Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III was Minnesota attorney general from 1983 to 1998. He currently works in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of the Office of Financial Protection for Older Americans. He wrote this for the News Tribune.

(source: www.duluthnewstribune.com)