Can Targets for Teenage Smoking Be Met?
The settlement would require sharp reductions in the use of cigarettes by young people who are below the legal age of 18 years or, at a state’s option, a higher age. If the percentage of teenagers who smoke on a daily basis fell by less than 30 percent by the fifth year after the enactment of the settlement, by less than 50 percent by the seventh year, and by less than 60 percent by the 10th year, cigarette companies would be required to make additional payments. Those payments (the settlement calls them a surcharge) are intended to eliminate the profit from the sale of cigarettes to “extra” teenage smokers over the course of their lifetimes, measured in present-value terms. The surcharge would be about $80 million for each percentage-point difference between the required reductions and the actual reductions in teen smoking. For example, if after five years the rate of teen smoking had fallen by only 10 percent instead of the required 30 percent, the settlement would require cigarette
