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The fight to stub out tobacco Dr Jeffrey Wigand is delivering an anti-smoking message to children and young people. He talked to Ben Jones about his work.

Q: Why did you form Smoke-Free Kids? A: I formed it with the goal of giving Dr Jeffrey Wigand is perhaps best-known as the subject children knowledge, so that they would of the 1999 filmThe Insider, who appeared on the US never try or use any form of tobacco television show to blow the whistle on the product. ’s false statements about the health risks posed by tobacco. He was portrayed by . Q: Tell us more about Smoke-Free Kids He has held senior management positions with and its work. pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson A: I also wanted to use my knowl- and , and later served as Vice President for Research edge, both scientific and business, to Madge TFI/Luis work with policy-makers around the Dr Jeffrey Wigand and Development for Brown & Williamson Tobacco world, who would develop and imple- Corporation from December 1988 to March 1993. ment policies, laws and regulations in- For four years Wigand taught Japanese and Science (Biology, Chemistry and tended to protect not only children Physical Sciences) at duPont Manual High School in Louisville, Kentucky, United but others from tobacco-related health States of America. He received national recognition for his teaching skills when hazards. Examples of these policies he was given the Sallie Mae First Class Teacher of the Year award in 1996. are smoke-free environments, fire-safe He founded and fronts the organization Smoke-Free Kids, which is dedicated and cigarettes without the to reducing tobacco use among children and young people. additives that make tobacco easy to use. Lastly is my role in litigation: using the courtroom to continue to shine a light on the truth and hold the tobacco indus- the filter of the . Then they need the most. Joe Camel was chosen by try accountable for its actions. to write up what they’ve learnt. people taking up smoking because With medical students, the lan- he was an icon like Mickey Mouse or Q: How do you work with young people? guage goes from informal to the highly Ronald McDonald. Bob the Cowboy ap- A: With youth my job is worldwide; sophisticated description of the mo- pealed to boys. If you talk to the Winston I’ve been in classrooms from to lecular structure of nicotine: why is it man, it was the excitement of doing male Switzerland and . I speak to children addictive? Why is it both a stimulant and things; if you talk to girls, it was the slim and young people from kindergarten a relaxant, what goes on in the brain? cigarettes. So there’s lots of subliminal through post-graduate school – mean- Then they learn about why nicotine ir- messaging going on. ing medical, law and business schools. ritates the arteries. The industry uses pricing, it uses The content changes. With children peer pressure; it’s a whole confluence from kindergarten through the age of of various factors. Sixty per cent of seven or eight, I give them tools to un- people who smoke start smoking with derstand why the use of tobacco and its The fundamental their friends, according to the Centers addictive properties will have an effect driving forces are for Disease Control and Prevention in on their health and life expectancy. “ the USA. whether you are doing Younger people get a scalpel, twee- zers, magnifying glass and microscope, something that you Q: Are there any studies of the effects of and they basically dissect a cigarette and believe is right and the work you do? learn what the components of a cigarette whether it makes a A: No. I don’t have the resources are: the tobacco column, what the filter difference. to do that. I measure it by the number looks like, the difference between a of people who give me their packet of white-tipped cigarette and a cork-tipped ” cigarettes after I talk to them or show cigarette. So the game is to work out why them something. Do I quantify the there is no difference between a light number of people who’ve written to me cigarette and a fully-flavoured cigarette Q: Have you ever smoked? after watching the movie [The Insider] or and how the industry cheats. A: Yes, I smoked for about a year seeing my web site? I’m not interested. They do a laboratory experiment, when I worked in the tobacco industry. so they have to learn how to do multiple Everyone else was doing it so guess what Q: Do you get a lot of positive feedback things: they have to learn teamwork, I did? I tried it! and is it that what drives you on? they have to learn to dissect a cigarette A: Positive feedback encourages and separate its parts, they have to Q: How does the tobacco industry get anybody. The fundamental driving learn to do record-keeping. They have kids hooked at a young age? forces are whether you are doing some- a microscope and a magnifying glass so A: The brand that is chosen by kids thing that you believe is right and they can count the number of holes in is one that is advertised and promoted whether it makes a difference. You also

640 Bull World Health Organ 2012;90:640–641 | doi:10.2471/BLT.12.030912 News

need to know whether the difference government has distinguished itself, what we did in the United States, there encapsulates a population or you can with measures such as smoke-free en- was a case in Japan too. The most suc- do it one by one. vironments, changes to packaging and cess so far has been in the US and now counter advertising. They’re all part of in Canada. Q: Not many people have had their changing the environment in which lives portrayed by Hollywood. Has that smoking has been endemic. Q: How strongly are lawyers involved helped you in your work? with the tobacco industry compared to A: I think the movie enhanced my the other industries you’ve worked in? public persona, yes. Would I be here A: Lawyers are part of the tobacco today if it wasn’t for the movie? Prob- I think industry both internally and externally ably not. government and they are intimately involved at all “ phases of operations. I don’t think that’s policies provide the Q: How is Smoke-Free Kids funded? true of the pharmaceutical industry. A: By me giving talks and presenta- environment for tions for which I’m paid. I don’t want people to make better Q: Are there any measures that govern- any other donors. I do what I want to decisions, I don’t think ments have taken that you feel don’t work? do because I want to do it. government tells A: I’m not that comfortable with anybody what to do the Family Smoking Prevention and To- Q: Tell us a bit more about your work with and how to do it. bacco Control Act, which was passed in governments. How do you promote the 2009, which basically gave the US Food anti-smoking message to policy-makers? ” and Drug Administration regulatory A: I would say they invariably seek power over the cigarette industry. My me out. I presume that’s because I have problem was that the industry directly a public persona. They ask ‘what would Q: Is public health winning the battle participated in crafting the law. So they you do if you were me?’ That’s how against tobacco? Has the tobacco in- exempted menthol, and two weeks I started with Allan Rock, who was dustry changed? after the law was passed Philip Morris Canada’s minister of health from 1997 A: No, I don’t think the leopard introduced menthol cigarettes. It had to 2002. We developed a programme has changed its spots. It’s just becoming no teeth. They should have eliminated in which we changed the packaging much more sophisticated in develop- menthol as an additive, not as a cigarette. and pricing and introduced smoke-free ing and delivering nicotine products, The tobacco industry was sued in environments. whether they’re dissolvable, cherry- the in 2005, it had to dis- I’ve been to Norway, , Ice- flavoured cigarettes, or whatever. They close all the additives, then the political land. There’s not too many places that continue to use their tentacles in govern- environment changed and the result of I haven’t been. ment circles to protect the industry. I that was that none of the additives has don’t think that’s changed dramatically been disclosed. ■ Q: Which factors ensure that people yet. I think it will change, because public don’t start smoking? health concerns over disease and death A: There’s no foolproof way. Every- are becoming much more influential. It body’s autonomous – they have their costs governments more money, more own free will. I have no domain or businesses lose productivity; ultimately control over that. That’s the purpose of they say ‘this thing is no good for us’. education. Education provides people What’s happening is we’re having a ‘de- with cognitive capacity to make good normalization’ of a two centuries-old decisions. product: it’s not part of everyday life. It’s evolutionary: we’re undoing two Q: Which government policies work centuries in a decade. when it comes to stopping children smoking? Q: Why do you want governments to A: I think government policies take additives out of cigarettes? provide the environment for people A: Because it would make tobacco to make better decisions, I don’t think taste disgusting. If I put something in government tells anybody what to do my mouth that tastes disgusting, then and how to do it. What government does I’m not going to use it. is provide the environment for people to behave in a certain way. In the case Q: Tell us about your involvement with of price increases, people say: ‘If I can’t litigation. afford it, I won’t smoke’. A: I appear on behalf of a plaintiff Corrigendum who has been harmed, or for a govern- Q: Which governments are doing a good ment who is seeking to recover the cost In Volume 90, Number 8, August 2012, on job in the fight against smoking? of health care [from smoking-related pages 564 and 565 the abbreviation for the Foundation for Genomics and Population A: The Canadian government has diseases]. I act as an expert witness. Health should have been “PHG Foundation”. distinguished itself and the Australian That’s what we’re doing in Canada, that’s

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