Tobacco settlement goes up in smoke

Merle Widmer has been under the weather, but he’s back with three posts this week, including this one, in which he applauds tort reform, and calls the infamous settlement between states and the tobacco industry “one off the greatest legal frauds of all times.”

Absolutely right.

Illinois at first took that money and created a fantastic tobacco education program that had students talking to other students, which is the most effective way to keep kids off cigarettes.

But the money was sucked up into other programs when the recession hit and now there’s no anti-smoking program to speak of.

And I am glad to see Merle is feeling better.