Online Tobacco

Industry News: Regents say no to tobacco stocks

University of California regents decided to say no to tobacco stocks Wednesday.

The nine-campus system doesn't own stock in cigarette companies now, but had been poised to start buying some because of a plan to diversify its $52 billion portfolio and invest in two index funds that included tobacco stocks. UC's tobacco investment stocks would have been relatively small, worth about $55 million.

At the last meeting, which was in November, some regents said they were reluctant to impose a tobacco stock ban, for fear it would lose money and make it more difficult to track the portfolio.

But those doubts apparently had been overcome by the time the investment committee took up the issue for vote. Regents passed a policy excluding investment in tobacco stocks unanimously and without discussion, a vote which is expected to be approved by the full board on Thursday. Industry News: Trust Seeks $135M From Big Tobacco

Cigarette makers deceived the public to protect profits and avoid blame for high lung cancer rates among asbestos workers, a lawyer said in closing arguments Wednesday in a multimillion-dollar case against the tobacco industry.

"We're never going to know the full story, because the full story has been destroyed," said Ed Westbrook, an attorney for a trust representing asbestos workers. "But what we do know tells a very, very sad story."

Westbrook asserted that the cigarette makers had known since the 1960s that smoking and asbestos exposure form a "lethal synergy."

Defense attorney David Bernick argued that the asbestos workers' trust was plagued by mismanagement and dwindling funds – not fraud by the tobacco industry.

"We never misled the trust," Bernick told the jury. "The trust knew all along about tobacco and synergy."