North Carolina Getting $211M from Cigarette Lawsuit Settlement

North Carolina’s annual share of payments from top cigarette companies paying for smoking-related health care costs is $211 million.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper notified Gov. Pat McCrory and legislative leaders on Friday how much money was going to state coffers and the Golden LEAF Foundation, which politicians established to help tobacco-growing regions transition their economies.

North Carolina has received more than $1 billion in the past decade under the agreement 20 states negotiated with Big Tobacco 15 years ago.

Winston-Salem-based R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. paid $1.8 billion this year for the second-largest cigarette company’s share to all the states covered by the settlement. Greensboro-based Lorillard Inc. paid $900 million this year.