TOBACCO LAWSUITS DRIVEN BY TRIAL LAWYERS

As talks over a rumored settlement of tobacco litigation proceed toward a climax, it is vital to remember how much this is driven by one narrow special interest: The personal-injury lawyers of the trial bar. This one is trial-lawyer driven from beginning to expensive end. With billions of dollars riding on the outcome, a few wealthy trial lawyers financed this litigation and recruited state attorneys general to their cause. More than a score of attorneys general signed up, claiming they must win huge damages against the tobacco companies to reimburse state coffers for Medicaid and other health-care costs due to smoking.

Juries have wisely and consistently refused to credit plaintiffs' arguments that tobacco companies are liable for smokers' fates after decades of habitual use. We have had warning labels on cigarettes for more than 30 years. After decades of media reports of the dangers of smoking, literally everyone knows the risks are huge. Some people will freely choose to smoke. That is their right.

Aside from trial lawyers' unrestrained greed, the whole effort proceeds out of a neo-prohibitionist impulse with deep roots in American soil. The disastrous American experience with prohibition of alcohol early in this century should give us all pause. That period was noted for spiraling crime and black markets, widespread disrespect for the law and, in the end, abject failure. Sure, the tobacco-merchandising giants make convenient bogeymen, but what of the poor folks who for generations have scratched a living out of the soil growing the stuff? Are they all to go on welfare?

Promoters of this settlement deny this is their goal. Onlookers will be forgiven for thinking otherwise.