Business Notes DIVESTMENT

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.

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!"