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- BUSINESS, Page 71Business NotesDIVESTMENTKicking Butts Off Campus
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- Despite the cigarette industry's growing disrepute,
- tobacco-company shares have generally been a smart investment
- in recent years. But now cigarette stocks face a challenge not
- unlike the campaign against companies doing business in South
- Africa. In a letter that came to light last week, Harvard
- University President Derek Bok disclosed that the school has
- divested its holdings in tobacco companies because their
- products "create a substantial and unjustified risk of harm to
- other human beings." At the City University of New York,
- trustees voted last week to dump its $3.5 million worth of
- tobacco stocks. The C.U.N.Y. divestiture was owing, in part,
- to the prompting of vice chairman Edith Everett, who serves on
- the board of a new lobbying group called the Tobacco Divestment
- Project, which aims to promote the sell-off.
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- In another assault on tobacco, Health Secretary Louis
- Sullivan urged state governments last week to enact new laws
- to discourage the sale of cigarettes to minors. Among the
- provisions: a ban on cigarette vending machines. "Our children
- can easily buy cigarettes virtually anytime they want to," said
- the secretary in a statement. "Clearly, something has to
- change!"
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