The University of California at San Francisco announced today that a $15 million gift will allow researchers to publish 40 million pages of top secret tobacco industry and related documents on the Internet. Christine O. Gregoire, chairwoman of the America

Gregoire, who is also the Attorney General for the State of Washington, lost her mother to lung cancer. She also spoke about the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company's Joe Camel campaign, which she said was targeted at young people so they would feel as familiar with Joe Camel the cartoon character as they were with Mickey Mouse. One document on display in the library is a confidential letter from actor Sylvester Stallone and dated April 28, 1983. In the letter, which is addressed to Associated Film Promotion, Stallone agrees to use Brown and Williamson tobacco products in no less than five feature films. In return, Brown and Williamson agreed to pay him $500,000. The foundation, an organization with an aim to forge a tobacco-free future, has a $250 billion budget. It was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between a coalition of Attorneys General in 46 states and five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Publishing the documents on the Internet will take some time, according to UCSF librarian Karen Butter, who says she expects it will take the university about one year to have the documents available in cyberspace. UCSF's current Tobacco Control Archives can be found at www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/. For more Bay Area news and information, visit the PIX Page at www.kpix.com.

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