One of the nation's top tort scholars and an expert on products liability generally and tobacco litigation specifically, Viscusi gives a scathing account of the 1998 multistate tobacco settlement. Viscusi argues both that the companies themselves made a mistake in settling and that the states did their citizens a disservice, amounting to little more than placing a large excise tax on the poor. Viscusi's approachable yet thorough use of medical studies and statistics is likely to have influence on even the most ardent anti-tobacco reader.