Up in Smoke
From Legislation to Litigation in Tobacco Politics
- Martha A. Derthick - University of Virginia, USA
In recent years, tobacco politics has been a multi-layered issue fraught with significant legal, commercial, and public policy implications. From the outset, Martha A. Derthick's Up in Smoke took a nuanced look at tobacco politics in a new era of "adversarial legalism" and the consequences, both intended and unintended, of the MSA (Master Settlement Agreement).
Now, with a brand new 3rd edition, the book returns to "ordinary politics" and the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act which gave the FDA broad authority to regulate both the manufacture and marketing of tobacco products. Derthick shows our political institutions working as they should, even if slowly, with partisanship and interest group activity playing their part in putting restraints on cigarette smoking.
"The book is the gold standard for this type of text—it’s clear, it makes a strong argument about reliance on courts to make policy, and it says something about the state of American democracy."
"I have found this to be an excellent book for my course, accessible to an undergraduate audience and well-written."
"I think Up in Smoke does an excellent job of showing the multiple avenues of policy development in the American context. It can be used to show the power of interest groups, the nature of litigation, and the variations in normal politics over time. The structure of the book fits naturally with how one might discuss this in class."
"The book is exceptionally lucid and captures the confiscatory logic of the Master Settlement AGreement brilliantly and shows that it is indeed a pathology of federalism. The book is brilliant at telling a story and unveiling important lessons about adversarial legalism and its downside."
Sage College Publishing
