Status and Campaign Plan for Tobacco Tax Initiative.

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Status and Campaign Plan for Tobacco Tax Initiative.

This R.J. Reynolds document, Status and Campaign Plan for Tobacco Tax Initiative, is a detailed description of the tobacco industry's game-plan to scuttle a tax increase ballot initiative in California. It reveals that the tobacco industry (and the firms it hires to defeat initiatives) go far beyond simply lobbying for their own side. They work behind the scenes to undermine the support already won for the initiative by the proponents. They threaten groups that pledge to support the initiative financially (for example, here they threatened the California Medical Association by telling them they would push "anti-medicine" legislation if they gave the amount of money they had promised to help groups advancing the initiative), they intimidate legislators, letting them know that getting behind the initiative could damage their political future. They tie up professional signature-gathering firms with other business to keep the proponents from retaining their services. They employ lawyers to seek out ways to legally harass nonprofit organizations, threaten the charitable status of these organizations, and make them expend their resources on work that is unrelated to their missions. The following quote reveals a harassment technique used by the industry against voluntary nonprofit agencies:

Although we consciously chose to keep the campaign at a low key and personal level... there was a great deal of activity on our part besides the areas already discussed: ... Retained O'Donnell and Gordon to explore all avenues of the appropriateness of the Heart, Lung and Cancer societies and thereby cause expenditure of time, effort and resources on their part. Every ounce of effort they have to expend defending themselves is effort they do not have to help in qualifying the Initiative.

Title STATUS AND CAMPAIGN PLAN FOR TOBACCO TAX INITIATIVE.
Author AK ASSOC;KINNEY P
Date 19870924
Type LETTER
Bates 506609215/9232
Pages 18
URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/diz44d00