143-716. Definitions.

The following definitions apply in this Article:

(1) Commission. - The Tobacco Trust Fund Commission.

(2) Compensatory programs. - Programs developed by the Commission to identify, locate, compensate, and indemnify tobacco producers, allotment holders, and persons engaged in tobacco-related businesses who have suffered actual economic losses in this State due to lost quota, the decline in value of tobacco-related personal property assets, and declining market conditions resulting from the Master Settlement Agreement or declines in the tobacco-related segment of the State's economy.

(3) Fund. - The Tobacco Trust Fund.

(4) Master Settlement Agreement. - The settlement agreement between certain tobacco manufacturers and the states, as incorporated in the consent decree entered in the action of State of North Carolina v. Philip Morris, Incorporated, et al., 98 CVS 14377, in the General Court of Justice, Superior Court Division, Wake County, North Carolina.

(5) National Tobacco Grower Settlement Trust. - The trust established by tobacco companies to provide payments to tobacco growers and allotment holders in 14 states for the purposes of ameliorating potential adverse economic consequences of likely reduction in demand, sales, and prices for tobacco as an agricultural product as a result of the Master Settlement Agreement.

(6) Qualified agricultural programs. - Programs developed by the Commission to support and foster the vitality and solvency of the tobacco-related segment of the State's agricultural economy, particularly the segment adversely affected by the Master Settlement Agreement, with the objective of alleviating and avoiding unemployment, preserving, and increasing local tax bases, and encouraging the economic stability of participants in the State's agricultural economy. Examples of qualified agricultural programs include programs to finance the modernization of farming equipment, programs to finance the conversion of existing equipment to conform to environmental and other regulatory requirements, and programs to finance the conversion or replacement of equipment in order to cultivate crops that are more profitable than are currently being cultivated.

(7) Tobacco product component business. - An individual, partnership, limited liability company, corporation, or other commercial entity that engages in the manufacture of component products for use in the manufacture of tobacco products.

(8) Tobacco-related business. - An individual, partnership, limited liability company, corporation, or other commercial entity that provides products or services used directly in (i) the production of tobacco, or (ii) support of the business of the production or sale of tobacco. The term does not include the manufacturing of tobacco products or the sale of tobacco products at wholesale or retail.

(9) Tobacco-related employment. - Employment in a tobacco-related business, or in the manufacturing of tobacco products or the component products used in the manufacture of tobacco products. The term does not include persons employed in the sale of tobacco products at wholesale or retail.