Our goal is to strengthen public concern about the serious health dangers caused by passive smoking (breathing the tobacco smoke of others) and to begin mobilizing nonsmokers as a force for effective clean indoor air regulation.

Even though private policy and legal restrictions on smoking in public places exist, many people do not take them seriously, and they are rarely enforced. Members of a 2002 meeting on tobacco control sponsored by the American Cancer Society and the International Union Against Cancer agree that one of the fundamental reasons for this indifference is the near universal lack of understanding or appreciation of the health risks of passive smoking.

California was in a similar situation about 15 years ago when the movement for smoke-free public places was just gathering momentum. Today, virtually all work sites and indoor public places in California are now smoke-free. Nonsmokers found smoke objectionable but did not feel empowered to speak out and demand that it be eliminated. Understanding the strong scientific and medical evidence that passive smoking is dangerous is an important first step in mobilizing the nonsmoking majority to support social change.

This lack of understanding has significant implications both for individuals and for public health. Individuals simply may not know why they need to protect themselves, their employees, or their families from tobacco smoke. Until they understand the dangers of passive smoking, people are not likely to demand clean indoor air regulations or the enforcement of existing nonsmoking regulations.

According to Dr. Thomas Glynn, American Cancer Society director of Cancer Science and Trends, "Those countries that have made the greatest progress in reducing tobacco use have nearly all been countries which have succeeded in creating broad public concern about the hazards of passive smoking." This widespread failure to understand the public health consequences of passive smoking is due to the tobacco industry's development of worldwide strategies to prevent the passage of clean indoor air laws for the last 25 years. Clean indoor air measures pose a serious threat to the industry's survival. In order to protect its profits, the industry needed to prevent the public, policymakers, and health professionals from knowing the truth about the harmful health effects of secondhand smoke. ¹

One of the industry's strategies is to create or sustain controversy around the harmful health effects of passive smoking. In fact, no such controversy exists. Respected scientists, researchers, and doctors around the world have proven that passive smoking is dangerous. However, tobacco companies continue to hire public relations firms to generate media coverage questioning this fact; they pay scientists to do additional research attempting to disprove it; and they lobby aggressively against effective smoke-free laws and regulation. To combat the industry's public relations and lobbying efforts, tobacco control advocates need to be informed about the scientific facts.

One key objective of the American Cancer Society and the International Union Against Cancer is to help the public learn more about—and thereby be more empowered to do something about—the serious health dangers caused by passive smoking. This requires effective advocacy strategies to enact and enforce laws mandating smoke-free public environments. For practical guides on how to advocate for smoke-free laws, please see the resources in Appendix I.