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Massachusetts Leaves Tobacco Industry Talks State to Focus on Its Medicare Lawsuit
Attorney General Scott Harshbarger said today he would focus all attention on a lawsuit in state court. The state is seeking billions of dollars to reimburse Medicare expenditures on smoking-related diseases. "Unless Big Tobacco shows me they are willing to take more responsibility for protecting our children and improving public health, I am not interested in returning to negotiations with them," Harshbarger said in a statement. Harshbarger accused cigarette makers of backpedaling on earlier commitments to fund efforts to curb teenage smoking and reduce advertising and promotions. He also was upset the industry is refusing to drop its opposition to being regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. But spokesman Scott Williams said the industry has not backed away from its original national settlement offer to Congress, in which the tobacco companies would have paid billions of dollars in return for broad protection from liability suits. He also said the legal fight over FDA regulation is needed to protect the industry from being shut down completely. "For people to start using political rhetoric at this time is not doing justice to all the hard work that has been done thus far," Williams said. Two of the tobacco companies, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., decided last week to withdraw from negotiations. Williams said he could not say whether they would return to the bargaining table. The nine-state talks followed a collapse in last year's proposed national tobacco agreement which would have paid $368.5 billion over 25 years. The plan fell apart when Congress failed to vote on it. Massachusetts took up the talks with California, Colorado, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Washington state.
© Copyright 1998 The Associated Press |
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