But that was long before Hanes began moving much of its production offshore, and before the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (under which the tobacco companies agreed in 1998 to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in damages for harming people's health), the leveraged buy-out of RJR by a private-equity firm, the elimination of federal farm price support for tobacco and decades of anti-smoking advertising.

ECONOMIST: North Carolina builds on the legacy of the golden leaf

The organization is battling persistent, if thus far unsuccessful, legal attacks on the Master Settlement Agreement by smaller tobacco companies, who say it is an anticompetitive scheme that allowed the big manufacturers to raise prices indiscriminately.

FORBES: The House Tobacco Built

The Master Settlement Agreement is a masterpiece of lawyerly tinkering with market economics, giving tobacco giants like Philip Morris protection from competition by requiring smaller companies to maintain their market share or face oppressive increases in their payments to the states.

FORBES: Will The Compact Clause Trump The Tobacco Settlement?