ANTI-SMOKING GAINS DRAG ON TOBACCO COMPANIES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 31, 1992                   TAG: 9201310039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
ANTI-SMOKING GAINS DRAG ON TOBACCO COMPANIES
Coming off a string of successes in recent years, the anti-smoking movement is flush with optimism as it looks ahead. And for good reason.
Barely two weeks into the new year, researchers reported impressive results from the most ambitious anti-smoking campaign ever. After a three-year education effort in California, funded by a tax on cigarette sales, the number of smokers in the state dropped from 26.5 percent in 1987 to 22.2 percent in 1990.
Now anti-smoking groups throughout the country are itching to duplicate California's effort and to engage the tobacco industry on a host of other fronts.
The tobacco industry has been on the defensive since the landmark 1967 surgeon general's report on the dangers of smoking, which led to a ban on TV and radio advertising of tobacco products in 1972. But what went largely unappreciated at the time was the simultaneous disappearance from the airwaves of highly effective anti-smoking public-service ads, required under the equal time doctrine.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, as the industry vigorously fought back, tobacco opponents joined forces and quickly began to gain new ground. For instance, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society all opened lobbying offices in Washington.
Among the anti-smoking campaign's biggest successes in the 1980s were the 500-plus local ordinances throughout the country that restrict or ban smoking in restaurants, stores and work places. Another victory came in 1987 when smoking was banned on all domestic flights of two hours or more.
The tobacco industry downplays these gains. "They tend to get pretty puffed up over small accomplishments," said Walker Merryman, vice president of the Tobacco Institute.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB