Smoke in Their Eyes: Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars

37. The Wrong Leaders for the Right Moment

280 37 The Wrong Leaders for the Right Moment At the close of this gloomy tale, it may seem odd that the tobacco control movement remains the envy of advocates in sister social change movements, from gun control to universal health care. After all, if one looks at cigarette-smoking rates and trends in 1965 and then in the year 2000, some fifty million Americans who do not now smoke would likely be smoking today if it were not for this movement. The legal environment for smoking has been transformed—thirty-five years ago, smokers unselfconsciously occupied virtually all public spaces; today, in most American cities, they must extinguish or be banished. And, in many communities, especially among better-educated Americans, the cultural environment for smoking has been equally transformed: fewer and fewer smokers dare to light up in the presence of their children— or their social arbiters. Of course, the social history of tobacco use in the latter part of this century is complex and fascinating, although not fascinating enough to justify digressing from our central focus in this book at this late point, except to acknowledge the contribution of what is surely a unique cadre of leaders who emerged at the right time and in the right combination of roles to move this movement forward. And none have contributed more than those whom I have just finished chastising . In the last twenty years, especially, the tobacco movement has been blessed with the right leadership at the right time. In the early 1980s, the best top-down, science-led public education efforts to reduce the deadly harm of smoking had been undermined and deflected by the tobacco industry’s disinformation strategies, while the worst and brightest of the nation’s lobbyists stealthily squashed modest public health initiatives in Congress and the state legislatures. It was then that Stan Glantz, the scientist-advocate, emerged to help build the scientific case that secondhand smoke sickened and killed bystanders at a rate that dwarfed far more notorious environmental Lessons from the Settlement and its Aftermath 281 hazards; Stan Glantz, the movement “spark plug,” emerged to sound the call for “bottom-up” grassroots political warfare against the tobacco industry, waged community by community; and Stan Glantz, the strategic communicator, emerged to model aggressive, bite-sharp media advocacy that focused public attention on tobacco industry corruption and exploitation of smokers, and away from the culpability of “weakwilled ” smokers themselves. In the mid-1980s came Dr. Koop, Ronald Reagan’s and Jesse Helms’s unwitting gift to the movement. Koop was the authoritative presence and voice of science and moral authority. He was the medical statesman who engaged the broad public in a combined scientific and moral crusade against villainous tobacco. And, as superb a communicator as Glantz, he also reframed tobacco use from an issue of personal choice to both an environmental public health issue, and a drug addiction issue . (“Yes, more addictive than heroin and cocaine!”) By the early 1990s Julia Carol had become the movement builder and organizer to complement Stan. Along with Fran Dumelle of the American Lung Association, Carol helped build and sustain a nationwide network of trained advocates who would effectively challenge the industry’s lobbyists in the state legislatures they had formerly dominated . In Congress, Henry Waxman had demonstrated great legislating skill in forging consensus on key mature health issues, from pesticide regulation to food and drug regulation. But in 1994, Waxman made perhaps his greatest contribution to the tobacco control movement. In brilliant media choreography, he forced the seven tobacco chief executives in a row to swear, under oath, that the earth was flat—that they did not believe tobacco to be addictive. In doing so, Waxman gave a human face to tobacco company villainy—mobilizing public outrage against the industry. And then, by the mid-1990s, David Kessler vaulted to national prominence as tobacco control’s strategic “inside” leader—the leader who found himself in the critical government role to initiate fundamental change and the diplomatic skill to bring a politically uneasy White House along. In 1995 came Bill Novelli, whose strategic communications skills, harnessed to The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s resources and Matt Myers’s strategic insights, put the political spotlight on Congress’s corrupt campaign-financing indenture to the tobacco lobby—loosening the industry’s hold on a Congress increasingly sensitive to public revulsion. 282 Smoke in Their Eyes Meanwhile, John...