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Changes in the way the tobacco industry does business

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Changes in the Way the Tobacco Industry Does Business.

Federal tobacco legislation must include measures to expose the industry's past misconduct, especially its efforts to market products to children, and to change the way the industry does business.

No Marketing to Children: Commitments by the industry --such as agreements to limit advertising to children --can serve to recognize the need for increased corporate responsibility. Today, the President reiterated his call to the tobacco industry to stop marketing and promoting tobacco to children.

Document Disclosure: To ensure that patterns of corporate malfeasance are disclosed and effectively checked in the future, tobacco legislation must provide for broad disclosure of industry documents, especially those containing scientific or other health information or relating to the industry's attempts to market tobacco to children. This legislation should respect essential principles of attorney-client privilege. But the legislation should establish effective mechanisms to turn over to the public all non-privileged documents, including documents the industry has inappropriately claimed to be privileged, as well as to disclose scientific and health-related information in even privileged documents.

Corporate Compliance: Tobacco companies should set up comprehensive corporate compliance programs that will reinforce the real economic incentives provided by the youth smoking penalties to discourage companies from marketing to children. The legislation should establish oversight mechanisms to investigate and monitor corporate compliance and to make recommendations to Congress on appropriate future legislation.

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