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Criminalizing Big Tobacco: Legal Mobilization and the Politics of Responsibility for Health Risks in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Michael McCann ,
William Haltom  and
Shauna Fisher
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Abstract

This article reinterprets the discursive terms and cultural meanings that redefined the legal campaign against Big Tobacco during recent decades. We underline the palpable shift from a conventional tort-based logic of products liability claims, which most analysts emphasize, to a logic incorporating key features identified with criminal law or “crimtorts.” The study builds on legal mobilization theory and combines narrative history of events with systematic analysis of media coverage across a twenty-year period to demonstrate how Big Tobacco was criminalized over two decades.

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Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , Spring 2013 , pp. 288 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2013 

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References

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