Volumes of lessons in policy advocacy are readily available through GLOBALink and many other tobacco control websites. There you can find sound strategic and tactical guides for every conceivable advocacy challenge. Here, then, let us look at a few of the central strategic issues in building, sustaining, and winning a national or regional tobacco control-policy campaign.

Fight

Perhaps the most important lesson many of us have learned over the nearly half-century of the tobacco wars—and often learned painfully—is that tobacco control, unlike most public health struggles, is truly a war. We are fighting an enemy: the tobacco industry.

And we have had science, truth, and public health firmly on our side. But none of these is enough to overcome the economic and political power of the international tobacco lobby—for our enemy is willing to corrupt science, lie, and avoid taking responsibility for the human misery and death it causes.

So we have had to learn to fight, not just fiercely but skillfully. We have had to learn the lobbyist's trade, and to understand that lobbying in the public interest can be not only justified, but also noble. We have learned to approach the mass media as one of our most important resources in exposing the corrupt practices of the tobacco industry—and in publicly shaming government officials who have shunned their fundamental responsibilities for the public health.

Flexibility

Fight has proved a sound rule. It has served well in many tobacco control battles in many countries. But every rule has its exceptions. One of the most important advocacy leadership lessons we have learned is this: The right strategy at one stage of tobacco control development, in one place in the world, may be completely wrong for another country at a different stage in its own movement.

When Witold Zatonski, almost by himself, launched a campaign to persuade the Polish government to enact a national advertising ban, international advocacy experts told him he must follow two rules without fail:

1. Make the corruption of the transnational tobacco companies the central theme of your advocacy.
2. Accept no compromises—if your Parliament will not enact a total ban on advertising, oppose their bill.

But Zatonski considered the state of his country. He observed how Poland was handling its newfound freedom from Soviet dominance. And he politely rejected this advice. Instead of attacking the tobacco companies, he chose to embrace a more positive outlook: He adopted the theme that public health was a transcendent democratic value. In 1995, when the Parliament was prepared to enact only modest tobacco control measures—far from a total ban on tobacco advertisement—Zatonski knew that, in Poland, such a bill would open the door for stronger laws in the future.

And six years later, on December 5, 2002, Zatonski sent out this message on GLOBALink:

Then he graciously added:

This does not mean that advocates should ever compromise too soon. It means that the political judgment of a strong, experienced country advocate may well be sounder than the counsel of an outsider, however experienced.

In South Africa, after the end of racial apartheid, Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma was faced with the draft of a tobacco control bill that comprised little more than a series of modest label warnings. International experts had cautioned advocates that such labels were worse than useless.

But the health minister and other South African advocates decided otherwise—for South Africa. Zuma believed that passing the legislation and putting warning labels on cigarettes would generate media attention to the hazards of tobacco use—and to the need to ban cigarette advertising. Zuma was right. She reported that even illiterate smokers saw that something on the package label had changed; they demanded to know what the change was about. Public awareness and support grew, and South Africa enacted an advertising ban three years later.

Opportunism

In policy advocacy, opportunism is not a character flaw, but a virtue. We can turn even apparent disaster into opportunity.

For example, in the Geneva negotiations on the WHO's proposed Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the US, German, and Japanese delegations opposed critical tobacco control policies, including a ban on advertising. Tobacco control advocates have been outraged at their inflexibility. But hard line—seen as the arrogance of power—has produced a surge of international resentment, and has provoked developing regions to react. These regions are taking an even stronger stand in support of such policies—and following through with strong national legislation!

But opportunism needs to function within an existing strategic framework. Without this structure, opportunism can easily lead advocates astray from their priority objectives.

Tobacco control advocates have spoken with justified pride for many years of "the global tobacco-control movement." Our movement combines deep values not only of public health but also of social justice. Yet, as these pages amply demonstrate, strong movements do not arise spontaneously; they take wise leadership and hard work. This guide testifies to our faith in the strength of the tobacco control movement, and in the emerging tobacco-control leadership in virtually every country to build that movement, with only this modest guidance from those who have gone before.