March 20, 2006

At least one state attorney general doesn't seem to share the enthusiasm of Spitzer, Lockyer and the NAAG for the multistate tobacco settlement:

"It's another lunacy of this program," said Trey Walker, spokesman for South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster [referring to the negative impact on state budgets of falling cigarette sales]. "(Attorney General McMaster) finds himself the tobacco regulator in South Carolina, and put in a position where he has to prop up big tobacco to make sure they sell enough cigarettes to make payments to the states.

"That shouldn't be the role of government. (McMaster) has said this is one of the most disgraceful abuses of the legal system that he's ever seen."