Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore opened up a new front in the nicotine war two years ago when he sued the tobacco industry, and he has continued to lead the charge against cigarette makers.

In recent days, Moore has jetted from Miami to Minnesota laying groundwork for a settlement with the first tobacco company to break ranks with the industry.He spent most of the past week in Washington working on the settlement with Liggett Group, the subsidiary of Brooke Group Ltd. that makes L&M and Chesterfield brand cigarettes.

The work of the 43-year-old Democrat has endeared him to health and anti-smoking advocates across the nation, but he has drawn sharp barbs from Kirk Fordice, the Republican governor of his own state.

Moore, exhausted but exuberant after five days of around-the-clock negotiations, said in an interview he had been the lead negotiator for the settlement.

"This litigation is the most important health litigation in history. Tobacco really does kill more people than any other cause of death," Moore said. "I know that 3 million kids every year begin smoking. One in three of them are going to die from it."

Fordice, who has blasted Moore's lawsuit against tobacco companies, has called the attorney general's action irresponsible and bad for Mississippi's business climate.

He said the lawsuit is about "big bucks and big publicity" for Moore and for private lawyers.

In December 1994, the Mississippi governor filed a friend of the court briefing siding with the tobacco companies against Moore's suit. On Feb. 16, he filed a petition before the Mississippi Supreme Court seeking to block the lawsuit altogether as an unauthorized action.

But Moore is a hero to anti-smoking activists.

John Banzhaf of Washington, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, whose work nearly 30 years ago led to banning cigarette advertising on television, called Moore a major player in the legal fight against the tobacco industry.

"He's a tremendously effective spokesman," said Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University. "He is behind the scenes just as dynamic, just as effective."

Dr. Tom Houston of Chicago, director of the Department of Preventive Medicine for the American Medical Association, credited Moore's May 1994 lawsuit with starting the trend of states suing tobacco companies to recover health-care costs.

Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota and West Virginia followed Moore's lead, suing tobacco manufacturers, wholesalers, trade associations and consultants seeking reimbursement for tax dollars spent treating illnesses related to smoking.

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More states are expected to file suit.

"I think Mr. Moore's high profile on the issue helped the other state attorneys general to take the steps that were required in their particular states," Houston said.

Moore began his third term in the $68,400-year office in January, having shifted the state attorney generalship from merely advising state and local governement agencies and representing them in lawsuits to law enforcement.

"Truthfully, when it gets right down to home, I've got a little boy who means more to me than anything else in this world. I suppose I'm doing what little I can to make his life better," Moore said, referring to his 9-year-old son, Kyle.

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