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VietnameseGriffin: ‘The annual disbursement of settlement funds supports key programs’
LITTLE ROCK – After the State of Arkansas received $55,609,876.42 as the 2023 share of proceeds from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with tobacco companies, Attorney General Tim Griffin issued the following statement:
“My office is tasked with enforcing the MSA and various tobacco statutes enacted pursuant to the MSA. The annual disbursement of settlement funds supports key programs in Arkansas that improve health outcomes.”
Background
In 2000, Arkansas voters created the Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act, which governs how the funds received under the MSA are used. Tobacco settlement funds provide funding to numerous health related programs in Arkansas, including the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, an agricultural and medical research consortium; the Medicaid Expansion Program, which provides Medicaid coverage for underserved populations; the Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Program, which aims to reduce tobacco use; and the Targeted State Needs Program, which includes support for public health programs for minorities, older Arkansans and residents of rural areas and the Delta.
In addition to enforcing the terms of the MSA, the Office of Attorney General’s enforcement of tobacco statutes includes operation of a certification process for tobacco manufacturers; ongoing quarterly and annual reporting; maintaining an Approved-For-Sale Directory for cigarettes; and conducting audits, investigations or litigation should violations of the tobacco statutes occur.
About Attorney General Tim Griffin
Tim Griffin was elected attorney general of Arkansas on November 8, 2022. He was elected lieutenant governor of Arkansas on November 4, 2014, and was re-elected for his second four-year term on November 6, 2018. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24th representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District. For the 113th Congress, he was a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority. In the 112th Congress, he served as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway, and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He attended graduate school at Oxford University. Griffin has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for over 25 years and currently holds the rank of colonel. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault in Mosul, Iraq). He is currently serving as the Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) for the 81st Readiness Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Prior to his current post, Griffin served as the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment (LOD) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and a senior legislative advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Griffin holds a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He also served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for President George W. Bush. Griffin lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.
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