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Lasting Impact
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Roberta Walburn, Partner, Robins, Kaplan, Miller, and Ciresi. In-person interview February 25, 2016
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State of Minnesota v. Phillip Morris Inc. forever changed how the American public encounters tobacco products. Resulting regulations help keep children from encountering tobacco. The settlement money helps thousands of Minnesotans through programs like Still a Problem, Clearway Minnesota, MN No Smoke, and Quit Plan. The findings of tobacco-company scientists have been published worldwide, deepening people’s understanding of tobacco’s dangers. |
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International health groups like the World Health Organization now promote tobacco control. In fact, the first global-health treaty, the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, was driven by the Minnesota lawsuit’s success. 
Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, 2003. smokefreepartnership.org
After 50 years of tobacco companies’ attempts to conceal research into smoking’s health effects, the lawsuit brought by Minnesota and Blue Cross Blue Shield encountered the truth. The lawsuit exposed information that continues to drive the worldwide push to stop the largest preventable cause of disease.
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Graph of number of cigarettes per adult (in red) from 1900 to 2010, lives lost from tobacco (in yellow) and lives saved by tobacco control (in blue) from 1964 to 2010 Courtesy of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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Jeanne Weigum, Executive Director of Association of Non-smokers MN. Phone interview. May 12, 2016.
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Pat Stieg, Director for the Center on Prevention at Blue Cross Blue Shield. Phone interview. May 12, 2016.
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Milestones in tobacco control history