This thread is going to be very easy for me to participate in. I started regularly smoking cigarettes in March of 1980. It was the same month and year I joined the Marine Corps, and I did it because in boot camp the smokers had their own little group and we could hang out together after chow and smoke and talk. It was a way to relax. For the years that followed after leaving the Service, I smoked in college and in my car and at work and in restaurants and movie theaters and casinos and even hospitals. It was all legal then.
In 1998, the four largest tobacco companies became subjects of a massive multi-state class action suit brought by the Attorney Generals of 46 states. They would have been destroyed if they had lost that suit so they settled instead and the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement was born:
Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement
This Master Settlement Agreement made it so that Big Tobacco would pay states for the effects of tobacco use. The states looked at that and borrowed against future income (they made a deal with the devil ). This is why the states and Big Tobacco do not want the e-cigarettes from independent makers to proliferate:
In 1998, the four largest tobacco companies became subjects of a massive multi-state class action suit brought by the Attorney Generals of 46 states. They would have been destroyed if they had lost that suit so they settled instead and the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement was born:
Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement
This Master Settlement Agreement made it so that Big Tobacco would pay states for the effects of tobacco use. The states looked at that and borrowed against future income (they made a deal with the devil ). This is why the states and Big Tobacco do not want the e-cigarettes from independent makers to proliferate: