Are State legislatures responding to public opinion when allocating funds for tobacco control programs?

Tobacco lobby political influence on US state legislatures in the 1990s.

BACKGROUND Throughout the 1990s the tobacco lobby was a potent political force in US state legislatures advancing its pro-tobacco agenda. OBJECTIVE To describe the market and political motivations of the tobacco lobby and the strategies they use to achieve these goals in US state legislatures. DESIGN This study is a content analysis and summary overview of recently released historical tobac...

State Public Assistance Legislation, 1949

Since the end of the war the number of persons receiving aid under the State-Federal programs of public assistance has increased almost steadily and the cost of the programs has climbed. The increases, though partly the result of higher living costs, also reflect the greater public awareness of need and the consequent action by State legislatures to provide more adequately for needy persons. Ac...

Professionalization and Public Opinion of State Legislatures

Fiscal versus social responsibility: how Philip Morris shaped the public funds divestment debate.

Calls for institutional investors to divest (sell off) tobacco stocks threaten the industry's share values, publicise its bad behaviour, and label it as a politically unacceptable ally. US tobacco control advocates began urging government investment and pension funds to divest as a matter of responsible social policy in 1990. Following the initiation of Medicaid recovery lawsuits in 1994, advoc...

The assault on bad food: tobacco-style litigation as an element of the comprehensive scheme to fight obesity.

Obesity in the U.S. has reached epidemic proportions. A dilemma of this sort must be attacked with a comprehensive, multi-faceted scheme. Litigation against the companies providing dangerous food has been called trivial, but allowing market forces to regulate has proven ineffective. The history of tobacco litigation has revealed that industry is willing to ignore dangers, act solely in the inte...