Then, last year, an industry-sponsored nonprofit group took U.C.S.F. to court, charging Glantz with improper use of tax funds. After six months of legal wrangling, the suit was dismissed. Glantz says that such public wrestling matches with the industry, though exhausting, serve an important purpose. But after it was over, we realized that we had inadvertently tricked the industry into running a huge public awareness campaign on the health effects of smoking. Years later, when a similar initiative passed, it was actually enforced.
Ordinances only work to the extent that they sanctify a change in public attitudes.
That is one reason he opposes any congressional bill preempting the 41 states that have sued cigarette makers. The companies also ceded 33 million pages of internal documents to public access. And they agreed never again to assert, falsely, that nicotine is not addictive or that smoking has not been proved to cause lethal diseases. Glantz advocates either no new federal law or a very simple one that stiffly increases the tax on cigarettes and slaps steep fines on their manufacturers if smoking rates among children fail to fall. And the flock is growing.