States try to recoup health costs of smoking.

States are going after the tobacco industry since the discovery that they are spending billions of dollars on patients with smoking-related illnesses.

Florida's $1.43 billion lawsuit started with a special act passed by the Legislature in 1995. Attorneys general in Mississippi, Massachusetts, Minnesota and West Virginia also are seeking damages. New Jersey introduced legislation in January that would allow it to sue tobacco companies to recover health care costs.

Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration maintains that the state has spent well over $1 billion in Medicaid funds since 1989 to treat citizens with smoking-related illnesses such as cancer, heart disease and lung disease. The Legislature's Medicaid Third Party Recovery Act seeks to recover those expenses from tobacco companies by changing state law to allow it to use statistical data as evidence without having to show direct cause, removing the comparative negligence defense and eliminating the statute of limitations.

In more than 800 lawsuits filed since 1954, juries have found that smokers should be held responsible for their decision to smoke. The Florida case, however, is based on nicotine's addictive properties, and therefore holds tobacco companies liable.

The law is embroiled in constitutional debate. Tobacco interests challenge it as an unconstitutional intrusion by the Legislature into judicial branch powers. State attorneys say the industry's constitutional defenses are not diminished because the state still must prove both liability and aggregate harm.

Other states are instructing their attorneys general to go after the state funds spent to treat tobacco-related illnesses. The most recent suit was filed by Massachusetts last December. It seeks to recover the full amount paid under its Medicaid program to treat tobacco-related illnesses.

Mississippi, Minnesota and West Virginia attorneys general also have pursued such litigation. West Virginia's suit is against 17 tobacco companies, industry trade associations and tobacco wholesalers. Mississippi has sued 13 tobacco companies and is seeking more than $2 billion. It charges the companies with common law nuisances because the public has a right to be free from unwarranted injury. And like West Virginia, it also seeks an injunction to stop promotion of tobacco use to minors.

Minnesota is the first state to use antitrust conspiracy and consumer fraud charges in a tobacco suit. Its case and the Mississippi suit are still in pretrial discovery, where each party can obtain facts and information from the other party in preparation for trial.

Smoking is under siege in other ways. Voters are approving tax measures to discourage the use of the products and to help finance the treatment of smoking-related illnesses. Michigan and Arizona passed new tobacco taxes in 1994. Michigan now has the second highest cigarette tax in the nation at 75 cents a pack (Washington's is 81.5 cents). Arizonans approved a tax raise of 40 cents per pack that finances health care for the poor and smoking education and prevention programs.