This text of Indiana § 24-3-3-1 (Findings regarding cigarette smoking) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
The General Assembly makes the following
findings:
(1)Cigarette smoking presents serious public health concerns to
the state and to the citizens of Indiana. The Surgeon General has
determined that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, and
other serious diseases, and that there are hundreds of thousands
of tobacco related deaths in the United States each year. These
diseases most often do not appear until many years after the
person in question begins smoking.
(2)Cigarette smoking also presents serious financial concerns for
the state. Under certain health care programs, the state may have
a legal obligation to provide medical assistance to eligible persons
for health conditions associated with cigarette smoking, and those
persons may have a legal entitlement to receive such medical
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The General Assembly makes the following
findings:
(1) Cigarette smoking presents serious public health concerns to
the state and to the citizens of Indiana. The Surgeon General has
determined that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, and
other serious diseases, and that there are hundreds of thousands
of tobacco related deaths in the United States each year. These
diseases most often do not appear until many years after the
person in question begins smoking.
(2) Cigarette smoking also presents serious financial concerns for
the state. Under certain health care programs, the state may have
a legal obligation to provide medical assistance to eligible persons
for health conditions associated with cigarette smoking, and those
persons may have a legal entitlement to receive such medical
assistance.
(3) Under these programs, the state pays millions of dollars each
year to provide medical assistance for these persons for health
conditions associated with cigarette smoking.
(4) It is the policy of the state that financial burdens imposed on
the state by cigarette smoking be borne by tobacco product
manufacturers rather than by the state to the extent that such
manufacturers either determine to enter into a settlement with the
state or are found culpable by the courts.
(5) On November 23, 1998, leading United States tobacco
product manufacturers entered into a settlement agreement,
entitled the "Master Settlement Agreement", with the state. The
Master Settlement Agreement obligates these manufacturers, in
return for a release of past, present, and certain future claims
against them as described in the Master Settlement Agreement,
to:
(A) pay substantial sums to the state (tied in part to their
volume of sales);
(B) fund a national foundation devoted to the interests of public
health; and
(C) make substantial changes in their advertising and marketing
practices and corporate culture, with the intention of reducing
underage smoking.
(6) It would be contrary to the policy of the state if tobacco
product manufacturers who determine not to enter into such a
settlement could use a resulting cost advantage to derive large,
short term profits in the years before liability may arise without
ensuring that the state will have an eventual source of recovery
from them if they are proven to have acted culpably. It is thus in
the interest of the state to require that such manufacturers
establish a reserve fund to guarantee a source of compensation
and to prevent such manufacturers from deriving large, short term
profits and then becoming judgment proof before liability may
arise.