ASH Annual Report for 2008

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is a national nonprofit legal action and educational organization fighting for the rights of nonsmokers against the many problems of smoking. ASH uses the tremendous power of the law to represent nonsmokers in courts and legislative bodies, and before regulatory agencies. For more than 40 years, ASH has been one of the most effective antismoking and nonsmokers' rights organizations in the world.

ASH was formed in 1967 by Executive Director John F. Banzhaf III, and a distinguished body of physicians, attorneys and other prominent citizens who saw the need for an effective organization to represent nonsmokers' rights. Although its income is tiny compared with the big national health organizations also active in the field - in part because it receives no money from the government and/or from the tobacco settlement - ASH has been a major factor in the war against smoking. For this reason, and because of its location in the nation's media center, ASH has also emerged as a major spokesperson for nonsmokers on radio and television and in the print media.

Also, unlike the many smaller state, local and specialty antismoking organizations with which it cooperates closely, ASH is active with regard to all aspects of the problems of smoking and nonsmokers' rights, and has a truly national focus. More recently, ASH again engineered a major expansion of its focus to become a leading – if not THE leading player – in the international war on smoking, by leading and serving as secretariat of the Framework Convention Alliance [FCA], an umbrella organization made up of hundreds of individual organizations in more than 100 countries all working to enforce and effectuate the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [FCTC]; the world's first international antismoking and nonsmokers' rights treaty.

One of ASH's major roles in the U.S. is to serve as a think tank and incubator for new strategies and tactics, and as a vehicle for propagating these new ideas to other antismoking organizations. legislators and regulators, and the general public. Thus ASH was out in front in proclaiming nicotine as a addictive drug, in urging bans on smoking not only in indoor public areas and workplaces, but also outdoors and in private apartments and homes where necessary to protect adjacent apartment dwellers and children living in the home, in pressing for lower health insurance rates for nonsmokers, and in many other areas.

ASH was the first major organization to publicize how as little as 30 minutes of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke could cause a fatal heart attack in nonsmokers, the dangers of Polonium 210 in tobacco smoke, and the dangers of thirdhand tobacco smoke. It was ASH which first argued that courts can and should issue orders prohibiting smoking around children involved in divorce proceedings, and around foster children -- a new movement which has now also led to bans on smoking in cars when children are present.

In short, ASH takes ACTION on smoking and health, and it does so very effectively, providing more "bang for the buck" than most other antismoking and nonsmokers' rights organizations.

Below are some of the major accomplishments of ASH during 2008.
Many more will be found by clicking links on: http://ash.org/newmoreash.html

■ ASH issued a press release and its SMOKING AND HEALTH REVIEW featured a lengthy piece on the problems of smoking and those with mental illness – a topic largely ignored by other major antismoking organizations, even though nearly 70% of people with mental illness smoke and consume more than 40% of all cigarettes. In part for this reason, their life expectancy is 25 years shorter than average. ASH noted that many people who are hospitalized with mental illness are involuntarily subjected to tobacco smoke, even though such conduct by medical professionals and health facilities may constitute medical malpractice and create other legal liabilities for them.

■ ASH wrote a strong and detailed letter to all fifty state commissioners of health reminding them of federal guidelines requiring all physicians to thoroughly warn all smoking patients of the many dangers of such tobacco use, and further provide that “every patients who uses tobacco should be offered at least of one of [two] treatments.” ASH noted a recent study showing that compliance with this guidelines by physicians was very low, and that substantially increasing compliance could save as many as 40,000 lives a year by helping many more smokers quit. Shortly thereafter, New York State enlarged its campaign to persuade doctors to comply with these guidelines.

■ ASH prepared and sent a detailed letter in support of a proposal in Great Britain to require all smokers to have a license to purchase tobacco products. ASH pointed out that such a license – in addition to raising money and imposing a burden on those who wished to continue smoking – could also do the following: require smokers to read documents about the dangers of smoking both to themselves and to others in their families, require them to accept these dangers for themselves, educate them about the many techniques and products available to help them quit, require smokers to get periodic health exams (e.g., chest X-rays) to provide the earliest possible warning about cancer and other conditions.

■ During the early months of 2008, ASH issued many press releases on behalf of nonsmokers. One pointed out that the health plans of the major presidential candidates largely ignored the easiest and least expensive ways to slash health care costs: prohibit smoking in public places, raise taxes on cigarettes, and charge smokers more for health insurance, including under Medicare and Medicaid (as Tennessee is now doing). Another pointed out, long before the major financial meltdown which occurred later in the year, that the credit rating of the U.S. was being threatened by the enormous costs posed by unhealthy habits like smoking.

■ ASH wrote a strong and detailed letter to the officials responsible for the new federal guidelines for physicians concerning smoking [“Treating Tobacco Use and Dependent Clinical Practice Guidelines”] asking them to make the guidelines even more effective. ASH advised the body, and in separate press releases warned physicians, that failure to comply could result in medical malpractice actions against the responsible doctors. ASH reminded the group and the nation’s doctors that low compliance rates by physicians cause over 40,000 totally unnecessary deaths among smokers each year.

■ ASH filed a formal legal protest and complaint against a proposal to permit the smoking of marijuana in smoking lounges at the Denver International Airport. ASH was concerned not only that nonsmokers at the airport would be exposed to marijuana smoke in additional to tobacco smoke drifting out of the lounges, that safety would be compromised if pilots and other essential personnel could duck into an airport smoking lounge for a quick hit, and that – if it proved popular – the arrangement could easily spread to other airports. Fortunately, the proposal was not adopted.

■ After the issue was first raised by former ASH Trustee Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, an African American and former Secretary of HHS, ASH became the only major antismoking or health organization to widely publicize a flaw – some called it a “racist” loophole – in a pending bill to give the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] jurisdiction over cigarettes. Although the bill generally prohibits the use of flavoring agents in cigarettes like peppermint or cloves, it does not prohibit the use of menthol – precisely the flavoring with the greatest appeal to African Americans, including children and teenagers. ASH’s press releases and other communications about this “racist” loophole were very widely reported in the media including USA Today, the New York Times, Washington Post, and even the Rush Limbaugh Show. Eventually, the bill was not passed.

■ ASH helped break the story that tobacco companies suppressed their own internal research on Polonium-210 – minute amounts of which killed former KGB agent Alexander V. Litvinenko – so as to avoid “waking a sleeping giant” as a secret Philip Morris memo put it. ASH reported that the chemical causes as much radiation exposure as 300 chest x-rays a year, is responsible for 1% of all U.S. lung cancers, and causes more than U.S. 1,600 deaths and over 11,00 deaths worldwide every year.

■ ASH helped expose in the media that a major university was apparently seeking funding for a health program from Philip Morris (now Altria) by claiming that administering nicotine to pregnant women improves the health of their unborn children. The proposal was dropped and funding was never granted after this outrage was exposed.

■ ASH’s Executive Director John Banzhaf was chosen to give a keynote address at the Fifth World Conference on Nonsmokers’ Rights on the many of new developments in the war to protect nonsmokers’ rights which ASH has been able to open up and support. He also was a major organizer of the Conference.

■ With the passage of the first international treaty designed to protect the handicapped – the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities – which uses many of the same words and concepts as the U.S. Americans With Disabilities Act [ADA] which has been widely applied to and used by many people sensitive to tobacco smoke, ASH began extensive legal research to see to what extent the new treaty could likewise be used in other countries to protect smoke-sensitive people. The results will be published during 2009.

■ ASH used the occasion of Paul Newman’s passing to remind Americans that former smokers face a grim death from lung cancer even if they quit smoking early in life. ASH’s message was carried by the media and over the Internet.

■ ASH continued to work with and through the Framework Convention Alliance [FCA] and the world antismoking treaty [Framework Convention of Tobacco Control] to pressure countries which have ratified the treaty to require the use of large graphic pictures and other images of the dangers of smoking on cigarette packs. During 2008 the UK joined Australia, Brazil, and New Zealand in requiring such warnings, which research shows are far more effective than simple textual ones.

■ When Cigna and Aetna health insurance companies both announced that they would ban smoking on their own property, ASH wrote to them asking each to take the logical next step – charging smokers more and nonsmokers less for health insurance. ASH letter pointed out how such plans had been approved by the federal government, were fairer than current plans, and provided enormous benefits in helping to persuade smokers to quit.

■ ASH prepared a detailed set of proposals for change related to smoking and sent them to key members of the Obama transition team, especially those working in areas related to health and to reform of our current health care and health insurance situation.

■ When much-in-the-news Governor Bobby Jindal announced that he wanted to enact “creative medicare reform” for Louisiana, ASH wrote a detailed letter which he should address the issue of smoking in a variety of ways to save the state billions of dollars and millions of lives. A similar letter was then sent to governors and key Medicare officials in the other 49 states.

■ Since ASH began its program of urging states to ban smoking in the cars and homes of foster children, no fewer than 17 states have adopted such requirements for foster children in their state. Thus, near the end of the year, ASH sent a very detailed and recently updated legal petition to the remaining states asking them to do likewise.

For more information on these ASH victories, see: http://ash.org/newmoreash.html

ASH'S REMARKABLE EFFECTIVENESS DURING 2008

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the many victories Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) was able to achieve during the year 2008 was that it was able to do so by spending just a few million dollars -- a drop in the bucket compared with many of the larger antismoking organizations, including many with major grants, governmental support, income from the multi-billion-dollar multi-state tobacco settlement, and otherwise.

Although ASH's audited financial report for the year 2008 is still being prepared, during the year 2007, ASH's fundraising expenses amounted to only about 2% of its total expenditures, and ASH spent only about 8% on management and other general expenses -- including mandatory costs such as the preparation of an annual report prepared by an outside auditor, fees imposed by government, insurance and other necessary fees, etc.. In short, 90% of ASH's expenditures went to fight smoking and protect nonsmokers -- a record few other organizations can match.

Solely for the purpose of permitting readers to more easily find additional information about ASH – and about other charitable organizations – we list below links to several organizations which provide such information on line for visitors. The listing below of any such information-providing organization does NOT suggest or imply that the organization endorses or supports ASH in any way, nor that ASH necessarily agrees with everything in its report

* ASH meets all of the numerous standards except that it has not designated one Board member as a Treasurer. Instead it has two different chief financial officers, and two separate bookkeepers who produce an annual report audited by an independent accounting firm.

PLEASE REMEMBER: These listings do NOT necessarily suggest or imply that the organizations endorses or support ASH in any way.

For all of the many reasons listed above, and because ASH relies so heavily upon contributions from concerned nonsmokers, please also check out the following important links:

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2013 H Street NW / Washington, DC 20006 / (202) 659-4310
A national nonprofit, scientific and educational organization founded in 1967.
All donations are fully tax deductible.

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