TY - JOUR T1 - Australia: lawyers ponder tobacco firms' criminal liability JF - Tobacco Control JO - Tob Control SP - 204 LP - 204 DO - 10.1136/tc.10.3.204a VL - 10 IS - 3 AU - JONATHAN LIBERMAN AU - RON BORLAND Y1 - 2001/09/01 UR - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/10/3/204.2.abstract N2 - Over 20 years ago, Ernest Pepples, a Brown & Williamson lawyer, dared put the unmentionable to paper—the possibility that the industry might be held criminally liable for its conduct. He wrote: “If we admit that smoking is harmful to heavy smokers, do we not admit that BAT has killed a lot of people each year for a very long time? Moreover, if the evidence we have today is not significantly different from the evidence we had five years ago, might it not be argued that we have been ‘wilfully’ killing our customers for this long period? Aside from the catastrophic civil damage and governmental regulation which would flow from such an admission, I foresee serious criminal liability problems.”Pepples' anxiety is easily understood. The proposition that the criminal law ought to apply to, and punish, those who … ER -