Smoking rates are down a decade after Minnesota and other states settled a groundbreaking lawsuit with the tobacco industry, but experts disagree about the extent that the settlement influenced the decline relative to other societal shifts, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Jan. 26.

Money from Minnesota's share of the $6.1-billion settlement signed with the nation's largest tobacco firms in 1998 has been used to help adults quit smoking, to prevent tobacco use among middle- and high-school students, and to help pave the way for a statewide indoor smoking ban, supporters note.

"When you talk to people, there's a different attitude now about smoking. Smoking is more the exception than the rule," said former Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III, whose office sued the tobacco industry in the mid-1990s. "That wouldn't have happened at nearly the pace it did without the settlement."

Some say even more could have been accomplished if lawmakers had not diverted more than $1 billion from the settlement fund. "The whole driving force behind this litigation was public health," said attorney Roberta Walburn, who worked on the case against the tobacco companies. "The settlement would have had a bigger impact if it had been used for public health instead of balancing the budget."

One of the first initiatives funded with Minnesota's settlement money was Target Market, a $24-million smoking prevention campaign aimed at teens. During the six years that the project was funded, smoking among high-school seniors in the state fell from 42 percent to 26.6 percent. Today, however, the state spends just $3.3 million annually on all tobacco-prevention projects.

Smoking-cessation programs like QuitPlan from state-funded ClearWay Minnesota and Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Minnesota's telephone counseling service have succeeded in attracting many participants. Still, it's unclear whether these and other prevention program deserve the bulk of credit for declining smoking rates.

"You can debate where the money went, you can debate whether the settlement had an impact on smoking rates or if it was a general societal trend," said Jonathan Redgrave, a lawyer who represented R.J. Reynolds in the Minnesota lawsuit. "The [tobacco] companies moved on. They're still in business today. Societal trends as far as tolerance for smoking -- was that really influenced by the lawsuit? I don't know."

Higher tobacco taxes and the statewide smoking ban also have had a big effect on public attitudes toward smoking, not to mention tobacco sales. "The industry has been discredited. The public knows the danger of the product. Would that have eventually come out without the lawsuit? Maybe," Humphrey said. "Smoking is the most preventable disease factor in the world, but we have a long way to go."