Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (1998)
Forty-six state attorneys general settled with the four largest US tobacco companies over healthcare costs linked to smoking. The companies agreed to pay states for decades and to change how they marketed their products.
States received annual payments and advertising restrictions took effect.
It became the archetype for state-AG litigation forcing industry-wide change, later applied to opioids and social media.
Alabama's TikTok deal uses the same playbook: coordinated state lawsuits producing industry-wide behavioral change without a federal statute.
