When tobacco targets direct democracy.

Tobacco control advocates began to use ballot initiatives to enact tobacco control measures in the late 1970s. In response, the tobacco industry worked for over two decades to change laws governing initiative and referendum processes to prevent passage of such measures. In 1981 the tobacco industry's political lobbying arm, the Tobacco Institute, created a front group that presented itself as a neutral initiative research clearinghouse to effect changes in state initiative and referenda laws.

Tobacco Industry Influence on the American Law Institute's Restatements of Torts and Implications for Its Conflict of Interest Policies.

The American Law Institute ("ALI") is a prestigious and influential organization that creates treatises on the current state of the law, including "Restatements" of case law that guide judicial decisions and legislation. This paper uses previously secret tobacco industry documents made available as the result of state and federal litigation against the industry to describe how the tobacco companies, acting both indirectly through their trade organization, the Tobacco Institute, and directly, using influential lawyers, quietly influenced the ALI's writing of the Restatements. The tobacco industry's ease of access to the ALI calls into question the Institute's independence, the preparation of major policy documents such as the Restatements, as well as the Institute's ability to monitor and control conflicts of interest.