OPINION

KLINE, P.J.

Petitioners, manufacturers of tobacco products, each of whom is a defendant in one or more of eleven lawsuits pending in respondent court, seek a writ of mandate and/or prohibition to compel the lower court to set aside its orders denying petitioners' motions for judgment on the pleadings in the actions filed by the real parties in interest. As we explain, petitioners are entitled to judgments on the pleadings; accordingly, we shall grant the petition.

BACKGROUND

DISCUSSION

(1a) The sole question to be decided is whether section 1714.45 precludes the maintenance of plaintiffs' actions for damages due to injuries or death allegedly resulting from the use of petitioners' tobacco products.

Section 1714.45 provides in full: "(a) In a product liability action, a manufacturer or seller shall not be liable if:

"(1) The product is inherently unsafe and the product is known to be unsafe by the ordinary consumer who consumes the product with the ordinary knowledge common to the community; and

"(2) The product is a common consumer product intended for personal consumption, such as sugar, castor oil, alcohol, tobacco, and butter, as identified in comment i to Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts.

"(b) For purposes of this section, the term `product liability action' means any action for injury or death caused by a product, except that the term does not include an action based on a manufacturing defect or breach of an express warranty.

"(c) This section is intended to be declarative of and does not alter or amend existing California law, including Cronin v. J.B.E. Olson Corp., (1972) 8 Cal.3d 121,[] and shall apply to all product liability actions pending on, or commenced after, January 1, 1988."

Plaintiffs concede that cigarettes are "common consumer products" within the meaning of subdivision (a)(2). However, they argue, and three lower court judges agreed, that the use of the word "if" indicates the statute was intended to be conditional, so that the provision would not apply unless petitioners either stipulated or proved their products are "inherently unsafe" and are "known to be unsafe by the ordinary consumer who consumes the product with the ordinary knowledge common to the community." They further maintain that "tobacco" and the four other products identified in subdivision (a)(2) are examples of "common consumer products," not of products that are "inherently unsafe" within the meaning of subdivision (a)(1), and that these five products are therefore not automatically immune. Finally, plaintiffs assert that petitioners' interpretation of the statute would result in a significant change in the law, contrary to the language of subdivision (c), which evidences the Legislature's intention to codify existing law without change.

In contrast, but with as much reason and force, petitioners maintain they need not prove their products satisfy subdivision (a)(1) because the inclusion of the word "tobacco" in subdivision (a)(2) is compelling evidence that the Legislature specifically intended tobacco products to be covered by this statute. As petitioners also point out, the legislative reference to "comment i to Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts," which pertains to immunity for certain "unreasonably dangerous" consumer products and identifies the same five products enumerated in section 1714.45, seems to confirm the intention to immunize manufacturers of these particular consumer products.

(2) The words and structure employed by the Legislature convey no "plain meaning." On the contrary, this poorly drafted statute is on its face amenable to two diametrically opposed interpretations, each of which conflicts in some significant way with the words the Legislature used.

In discharging our responsibility to make sense of such antinomies we are compelled to impute to the statute that meaning which comports with the objective the Legislature sought to achieve. ( California Mfrs. Assn. v. Public Utilities Com. (1979) 24 Cal.3d 836, 844 [ 157 Cal.Rptr. 676, 598 P.2d 836], and cases there cited.) (3) In determining what the Legislature intended we are bound to consider not only the words used, but also other matters, "such as context, the object in view, the evils to be remedied, the history of the times and of legislation upon the same subject, public policy and contemporaneous construction. ( Estate of Jacobs (1943) 61 Cal.App.2d 152, 155 [ 142 P.2d 454]. . . .)" ( Alford v. Pierno (1972) 27 Cal.App.3d 682, 688 [ 104 Cal.Rptr. 110].) "`It is a fundamental rule that a statute should be construed in the light of the history of the times and the conditions which prompted its enactment.'" ( People v. Fair (1967) 254 Cal.App.2d 890, 893 [ 62 Cal.Rptr. 632].)

(1b) As indicated, the bare words of section 1714.45 are consistent with plaintiffs' position: The statute clearly states that a manufacturer or seller will not be liable if the product meets the conditions set forth in subdivisions (a)(1) and (a)(2). Subdivision (a)(2) states that the product must be a common consumer product intended for personal consumption " such as sugar, castor oil, alcohol, tobacco, and butter. . . ." (Italics added.) The placement of the italicized words suggests the list was only intended to provide examples of common consumer products, not products that are "inherently unsafe" and "known to be unsafe by the ordinary consumer" within the meaning of subdivision (a)(1). However, while the unadorned language and organization of the statute are consistent with plaintiffs' position, the legislative history of the statute and "the wider historical circumstances of its enactment," which "are legitimate and valuable aids in divining the statutory purpose" ( California Mfrs. Assn. v. Public Utilities Com., supra, 24 Cal.3d at p. 844; People v. Black (1982) 32 Cal.3d 1, 5 [ 184 Cal.Rptr. 454, 648 P.2d 104]) persuade us that the Legislature intended to create the automatic immunity petitioners assert.

Documentary and other evidence produced by petitioners convincingly shows that section 1714.45 was one of the results of a compromise between parties seeking and opposing comprehensive changes in California tort law who had been locked in a long political struggle that had reached stalemate. Shortly before the statute was enacted, representatives of the Association of California Insurance Companies, the Association for California Tort Reform, the California Medical Association, the California Trial Lawyers Association (CTLA) and the California Chamber of Commerce all agreed to a five-year moratorium on initiating, sponsoring or supporting legislation or initiatives on tort reform, insurance regulation or modification of the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975. (Stats. 1975, 2d Ex. Sess., ch. 1, p. 3949.) (4a), (1c) It was commonly understood that the measure embodying section 1714.45, which enjoyed the active or at least tacit support of all these groups, would provide nearly complete immunity for manufacturers of the five enumerated products. For example, in a letter to CTLA members, the president of that organization explained that: ". . . [e]ach of [the enumerated products] is voluntarily and physically consumed by the individual routinely despite the known inherent dangers.

"Since the dangers cannot be further reduced, minimized or alleviated without removing the product from the market, product liability suits would only require or cause their removal. The policy decision has already been made by society in favor of their availability.

". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"[ I] t was intended and understood that the immunity would apply to the five products identified." (Italics added.)

A memorandum prepared for the Assembly Republican Caucus explained that under the new legislation "high-cholesterol foods, alcohol, and cigarettes that are inherently unsafe and known to be unsafe by ordinary consumers, are not to be subject to product liability lawsuits." Finally, the record includes numerous contemporaneous news accounts of the legislation uniformly reporting that the statute resulted from a "peace pact" among some of California's major special interest groups and would provide immunity for manufacturers of the five products named in section 1714.45

The foregoing evidence very strongly indicates that the Legislature intended to immunize manufacturers of sugar, castor oil, alcohol, tobacco and butter from product liability suits.

Though the materials we employ to discern this intent are not the sort courts frequently rely upon, we are constrained to do so by necessity. The statute, which seems almost calculated to defy exegesis, was enacted swiftly and unexpectedly late in the legislative session, thereby leaving us without many of the extrinsic indications of legislative purpose often provided by the legislative process. Furthermore, though plaintiffs dispute the intent we ascribe to the Legislature, they do not present us with any historical evidence of a different intent. (5) Finally, legislative staff analyses of a measure may be used to discover legislative intent where, as is true of the staff memorandum we rely upon, the analysis is in accord with a reasonable interpretation of the enactment. ( Southern Cal. Gas Co. v. Public Utilities Com. (1979) 24 Cal.3d 653, 659 [ 156 Cal.Rptr. 733, 596 P.2d 1149].) Resort to such a staff analysis is most appropriate in a case such as this, where, so far as the court is aware, it is the only legislative document available that sheds light on the meaning of the statute. (See White v. Davis (1975) 13 Cal.3d 757, 775 [ 120 Cal.Rptr. 94, 533 P.2d 222].) (4b) Though the statement of a representative of a special interest group, such as CTLA, is ordinarily an unreliable indication of the purpose of legislation affecting the interests of that group, this is not so where, as here, the statement concedes a purpose inimical to the goals of the interest group.

(1d) The reference in subdivision (a)(2) to the Restatement of Torts also supports petitioners' interpretation of the statute. Section 402A of the Restatement pertains to the strict liability of one who sells "any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer. . . ." Comment i explains that "unreasonably dangerous" applies only where there is a defective condition and does not describe products — like "sugar," "castor oil," "whiskey," "tobacco" and "butter" — that "cannot possibly be made entirely safe for all consumption, and . . . necessarily involve some risk of harm, if only from over-consumption." The reference to this language and these same products in section 1714.45 would be entirely inappropriate if the legislative intendment was not to exclude the enumerated items from product liability on a rationale analogous to that discussed in comment i to section 402A of the Restatement. Moreover, the reference to the Restatement would not only have been inappropriate but wholly unnecessary if the five products were identified merely to provide examples of "common consumer product[s] intended for personal consumption," as plaintiffs contend. Adoption of plaintiffs' position would thus violate the general rule that "[i]nterpretative constructions which render some words surplusage . . . are to be avoided." ( California Mfrs. Assn. v. Public Utilities Com., supra, 24 Cal. 3d at p. 844.) (6a) Plaintiffs' most troublesome argument is that petitioners' claims of immunity are inconsistent with subdivision (c) of the statute, which states that section 1714.45 "is intended to be declarative of and does not alter or amend existing California law." As plaintiffs correctly point out, if the language of subdivision (c) is assigned the literal meaning conventionally attached to those words subdivision (c) would conflict with subdivision (a), which creates an immunity that cannot be conferred without altering or amending existing California law. (7) The judicial responsibility is to harmonize provisions of a single statute that are seemingly in conflict to the extent possible and to avoid an interpretation that would render the statute meaningless. ( Orpustan v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. (1972) 7 Cal.3d 988, 994 [ 103 Cal.Rptr. 919, 500 P.2d 1119] [courts have "no right to . . . emasculate [a statute's] application under the guise of judicial interpretation"].)

(6b) The only way to eliminate the apparent conflict between subdivisions (a) and (c) and effectuate what extrinsic evidence clearly shows to have been the legislative purpose is to read subdivision (c) as expressing an intention not to alter or amend existing statutory or common law except as specifically provided in section 1714.45 Thus, the reference to Cronin v. J.B.E. Olson Corp., supra, 8 Cal.3d 121 eliminated doubt, if there was any, that the new statute left untouched the rule, reaffirmed in Cronin, that a plaintiff in a products liability case seeking recovery upon the theory of strict liability need not establish that the defect in the product that caused his injuries made the product unreasonably dangerous. Read in this manner, subdivision (c) does not conflict with an interpretation of the entire statute as providing automatic immunity for manufacturers of the enumerated consumer products. (8, 9) (See fn. 5.), (6c) We reject the different interpretation of subdivision (c) advanced by plaintiffs because it would render subdivision (a) meaningless and defeat the apparent purpose of section 1714.45

The literal reading of the statute urged by plaintiffs would significantly undermine the discernible legislative intendment. (10) We are constrained to "interpret legislation reasonably and . . . attempt to give effect to the apparent purpose of the statute." ( Zidell v. Bright (1968) 264 Cal.App.2d 867, 869 [ 71 Cal.Rptr. 111].) (11) (See fn. 6.) The lower court is hereby ordered to vacate its previous orders denying petitioners' motions for judgment on the pleadings and to grant those motions. The stay heretofore imposed is lifted. Petitioners' application for costs is denied (Code Civ. Proc., § 1027; Cal. Rules of Court, rule 26); all parties shall bear their own costs.

Smith, J., and Benson, J., concurred.

A petition for a rehearing was denied March 8, 1989, and the petition of real parties in interest for review by the Supreme Court was denied May 25, 1989. Mosk, J., and Eagleson, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.