Public Opinion, Public Policy, and Smoking tracks Americans’ changing attitudes about cigarette smoking over the last century. With data from more than five thousand public and privately conducted polls, this book carefully examines how Americans came to understand the health risks of smoking; how the tobacco industry sought to reframe smoking; and how public opinion support for tobacco control affected lawsuits, elections, and public policies. This book tests several well-known linkage models that connect public opinion with public policy. It shows that conventional wisdom about public opinion and tobacco control policy is often mistaken. This book offers the first in-depth look at American public opinion and cigarette smoking during the last century.

Public and governmental attitudes toward tobacco use are dramatically different today when compared to the attitudes of the mid-1960s. Smoking then was widely regarded as a mark of sophistication and a natural companion at work and play. The accumulating evidence on the serious health risks of smoking to both smokers and nonsmokers has changed those sentiments. Now tobacco use is increasingly a target of cultural disapproval - both in social circles and in the regulatory arena. Smoking Policy: Law, Politics, and Culture examines the interplay between public opinion and governmental action as norms have changed about whether one should smoke and where it is appropriate to do so. In this study, an interdisciplinary team from law, public health, communications, political science and sociology addresses a wide range of tobacco control issues. Topics covered include the politics of smoking control, lawsuits by smokers against the tobacco industry, the strategies of employers and insurers in discouraging smoking lessons from drug and alcohol control, the conversion of smoking from a health issue into a moral issue, the enforcement of no smoking rules, and the impact of tobacco advertising controls. This volume provides a comprehensive exploration of both institutional and informal mechanisms regulating tobacco use in late-twentieth century America. The contributors assess the roles played by public officials, corporations and insurers, the scientific, public health and medical communities, and opinion leaders. Smoking Policy is essential reading for policymakers and advocates, professionals in law, public health, and social science fields, corporate officials, and those generally interestedin issues of smoking and public health.

The nation has made tremendous progress in reducing tobacco use during the past 40 years. Despite extensive knowledge about successful interventions, however, approximately one-quarter of American adults still smoke. Tobacco-related illnesses and death place a huge burden on our society. Ending the Tobacco Problem generates a blueprint for the nation in the struggle to reduce tobacco use. The report reviews effective prevention and treatment interventions and considers a set of new tobacco control policies for adoption by federal and state governments. Carefully constructed with two distinct parts, the book first provides background information on the history and nature of tobacco use, developing the context for the policy blueprint proposed in the second half of the report. The report documents the extraordinary growth of tobacco use during the first half of the 20th century as well as its subsequent reversal in the mid-1960s (in the wake of findings from the Surgeon General). It also reviews the addictive properties of nicotine, delving into the factors that make it so difficult for people to quit and examines recent trends in tobacco use. In addition, an overview of the development of governmental and nongovernmental tobacco control efforts is provided. After reviewing the ethical grounding of tobacco control, the second half of the book sets forth to present a blueprint for ending the tobacco problem. The book offers broad-reaching recommendations targeting federal, state, local, nonprofit and for-profit entities. This book also identifies the benefits to society when fully implementing effective tobacco control interventions and policies.

Required reading for anyone wishing to be conversant with tobacco control policy, the book is edited by Kenneth E. Warner—dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan and a leading tobacco policy researcher—who leads with an overview of the field. Warner’s overview is supported by reprints of some of the field’s most significant articles, written by leading scholars and practitioners. The topics discussed are: Taxation and Price Clean Indoor Air Laws Advertising, Ad Bans, and Counteradvertising Possession, Use, and Purchase (PUP) Laws and Sales to Minors Cessation Policy Comprehensive State Laws

Tobacco, among the most popular consumer products of the twentieth century, is under attack. Once a behavior that knew no social bounds, cigarette smoking has been transformed into an activity that reflects sharp differences in social status. Unfiltered tells the story of how anti-smoking advocates, public health professionals, bureaucrats, and tobacco corporations have clashed over smoking regulation. The nations discussed in this book--Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States--restrict tobacco advertising, tax tobacco products, and limit where smoking is permitted. Each is also struggling to shape a tobacco policy that ensures corporate accountability, protects individual liberty, and asserts the state's public health power. Unfiltered offers a comparative perspective on legal, political, and social conflicts over tobacco control. The book makes a unique contribution to our understanding of how scientific evidence, global health advocacy, individual risk assessments, and governmental interests intersect in the crafting of tobacco policy. It features national case studies and cross-cultural essays by experts in health policy, law, political science, history, and sociology. The lessons in Unfiltered are crucial to all who seek to understand and influence tobacco policy and reduce tobacco-related mortality worldwide.

The health and economic costs of tobacco use in military and veteran populations are high. In 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) make recommendations on how to reduce tobacco initiation and encourage cessation in both military and veteran populations. In its 2009 report, Combating Tobacco in Military and Veteran Populations, the authoring committee concludes that to prevent tobacco initiation and encourage cessation, both DoD and VA should implement comprehensive tobacco-control programs.