What is the Master Settlement Agreement?

Remember when all the heads of major tobacco companies sat in front of a congressional panel and told bald-faced lies about what they knew about their cigarettes’ addictive potential, and further, denied that they used any additional (harmful) ingredients to increase addiction?  

Once exposed for the lies they told, the attorneys general from multiple states got together to sue big tobacco for their lies, for the potential harm they had done to the smoking populace, and to bolster the health care system to be able to take care of these potentially harmed smokers.

 This resulted in a multi-billion dollar settlement, known as the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), where the big tobacco companies would pay installments to the states for 25 years, totaling $206 billion dollars.