But I think it was too late, and the level of distrust that had built up over the immunity issue among public health groups prevented the public health groups from coming together strongly enough. At the time, there was a lot of talk that the debate over the McCain bill was taking too long, but the way I looked at it, the longer the debate went on, the more educated the public became and the stronger the public health people were. A majority in the Senate supported the amended bill and Lott and allies had to resort to very bald procedural subterfuge to defeat it. If you had come to me six months earlier and said that a strong bill without immunity would have garnered a majority vote in the Senate, I would have thought you were nuts. The first thing is a national approach that is designed to empower communities.
Tobacco is first and foremost a social problem, and a problem of how society views tobacco.
That is why the tobacco industry gives lots of money to sponsor community events and to sponsor community organizations. They want to be viewed as part of the community. They want tobacco use to be an accepted part of American life. If you look at the lessons of the California campaign, and from Massachusetts and the federal Assist program, the involvement of community groups and community members in countering and changing that reality has been very important. Put a couple of billion dollars into it.