Too much devolution. (Politics).

Michael Greve, "States' Rights on Steroids," in AEI Federalist Outlook, September/October 2002 (aei.org)

Following a successful crusade to regulate the tobacco industry through a series of lawsuits, state attorneys general have turned their attention to pharmaceutical manufacturers and their fat bank accounts. AEI fellow Michael Greve believes that this new trial-lawyer-led attack could result in a heavily regulated quasi-public drug industry that does little more than produce "phony remedies for politically favored maladies and body parts." The attorneys general seek both to extract money from the companies for "unfair" marketing practices and to regulate them through litigation.

Although pharmaceutical companies, unlike tobacco manufacturers, make products which almost everyone agrees are beneficial, they prove a tempting target because there are few of them and they produce products that are very easy to transport across state lines. Manufacturers of easy-to-transport goods make more attractive targets because their distribution networks make it almost impossible for manufacturers to pass the costs from one state's litigation onto the citizens of that state alone. Consolidated industries, likewise, are much easier to sue: Suing every fast food establishment in the country would be impossible, but suing every drug company is reasonably simple. As a ...