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It's not just the direct taxes from sales the Government is starting to sting from, or the revenues to the Big Tobacco companies.
Under the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with the tobacco companies, Big Tobacco is supposed to pay billions per year over decades to compensate for health care and other issues created by their industry's prior decades of lies and propagation of tobacco use, and also to be protected against lawsuits or specifically tort actions against them.
States actually started selling "tobacco bonds" over the expected revenue, which payments were determined by sales volumes.
And since anti-tobacco propaganda has been so successful, and electronic cigarettes have started taking a major chunk of that revenue, states (especially) have started growing alarmed about those bonds defaulting. In some states, they *have* technically defaulted, and I'm not sure how but they're still being secured...
But don't wonder why state and even local governments are creating false fear and lie-based legislation against e-cigs, banning their use as if they had anything to do with tobacco, demonizing vapor, and claiming "we have no research"...
It's all about the money they stand to lose - not just revenue, but bond default. They've basically been betting people will keep smoking and getting sick since 1998, hoping tobacco sales don't go down as sharply as they have...
Other happy recipients of the billions of dollars of tobacco settlement money are the American Lung Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids... these people stand to lose their reason to be if Tobacco goes bye-bye, and people aren't afflicted anymore...
:D
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