From The Gazette:

A landmark, multibillion-dollar settlement with tobacco companies in 1998 broke their “invincibility” and caused a cultural shift that significantly reduced smoking, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said Thursday.

Miller marked Sunday’s 10-year anniversary of the master settlement among state attorneys general and 42 tobacco companies by trumpeting the fact that cigarette consumption is the lowest since U.S. records began in 1950.

“It was an incredible battle and fight to get the settlement,” said Miller, who noted the agreement is regarded as the largest legal settlement in world history. “There’s been enormous progress in terms of the efforts to reduce smoking in America, to reduce suffering, disease and loss of life and all the economic consequences of smoking.”

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