HPH NOW, Sept 29, 2006, Workshop Focused on Next Steps in Ongoing Tobacco Control Fight

Eight years ago, the Master Settlement Agreement of 1998 severely limited the tobacco industry's advertising, marketing and lobbying activities and required tobacco companies to pay states over $200 billion through 2025. What is the state of tobacco control today and what are the next steps?

Kenneth Warner

These kinds of questions were at the center of an all-day workshop at HSPH on September 18 that included tobacco control experts from around the country and from Canada.

"This is the first conference of many where we will be looking at our current interventions and asking critical questions of what the future research needs are to collectively make smoking history in our society,'' said Gregory Connolly, HSPH professor of the practice of public health and former director of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Tobacco Control Program.

The workshop, "Can We Make Smoking History In Our Lifetime?'', was sponsored by HSPH's Tobacco Control Working Group.

"We think we have the tools now to further reduce tobacco use, but we need new ideas and new research to make our society smoke-free," said Connolly.

For example, while smoking among men is down by half over the past 30 years, rates among women-historically lower than those for men-are now equal to rates for men, Connolly noted.

"There could be different factors that contribute to women smoking and to them quitting,'' he said. "We have to critically look at identifying what those factors are and what the research needs are, and then work together to provide guidance to the scientific community and to the public health community.''

A special presentation was given at lunch by Kenneth Warner, Dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health. He spoke about tobacco economies and the future, speculating on how high a pack of cigarettes may cost before a black market in tobacco products emerges. Taxation is one tool that has been used to deter tobacco use.

Other participants in the workshop included Matthew Myers of the Campaign for Smoke Free Kids; Lois Biener of the Center for Survey Research at the University of Massachusetts Boston; David Burns of the University of California San Diego, Medical School; Howard Koh of HSPH; K. Michael Cummings of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute; Dorothy Hatsukami of the University of Minnesota; Jack Henningfield of Pinney Associates, Inc.; Neil Collishaw of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada; Nancy Rigotti of the MGH Tobacco Research and Treatment Center; Mitch Zeller of Pinney Associates; Michael Crosby of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility; Alan Brandt of Harvard Medical School; and Richard Daynard of the Northeastern University School of Law.

--ML