Nassau and Suffolk County officials celebrated 25 years of payments since the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which brought an end to tobacco ads targeting children and secured the largest legal settlement in U.S. history.
“We are out each and every day trying to promote a healthy lifestyle here in Nassau County,” County Executive Bruce Blakeman said at the Sullivan Papain Block McGrath Coffinas & Cannavo P.C. law firm in Garden City on Wednesday, Aug. 13.
The law firm helped broker a settlement agreement in 1998 between four of the largest tobacco companies, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard, and 46 states, Washington D.C. and multiple U.S. territories that resulted in the tobacco companies being forced to pay states billions of dollars for tobacco-caused healthcare costs and ended certain tobacco marketing and advertising aimed at kids.
The 25th anniversary marks the first year that states received annual payments from the settlement. The companies have paid states hundreds of billions of dollars since the start of the settlement.
Blakeman said the county has received roughly $200 million from the agreement.
The funding from the settlement was intended to be allocated to lifesaving tobacco prevention efforts in states, not just when the agreement was signed, but through annual payments by the tobacco companies to the states for as long as they continue to sell cigarettes due to the death and disease their products cause.
Robert Sullivan, a director of the firm, said tobacco companies used to use prominent figures that children could relate to advertise their products.
“Every young kid wanted to be like him,” he said about the Marlboro Man.
Sullivan also showed old advertisements using U.S. President Ronald Reagan and MLB Hall of Famer Hank Aaron to attract kids to tobacco products.
“That’s how they sucked them in,” he said.
According to the National Association of Attorneys General, between 1998 and 2019, U.S. cigarette consumption dropped by more than 50%.
The association also reported that regular smoking by high school students dropped from 36.4% in 1997 to a low of 6.0% in 2019.
“That’s going to save millions of lives,” Sullivan said about the policies set in the settlement regarding advertising to children. “That’s my proudest accomplishment.”
Nicholas Papain, another director of the firm, shared a similar sentiment.
“You can’t count the number of lives it has saved,” he said.
State Sen. Anthony Palumbo, who represents parts of Suffolk County, applauded the law firm’s actions and said this has been a regional battle against tobacco.
Lawmakers also congratulated the law firm on its 100 years of service at the press conference.
