What Others Have Said About Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
John F. Banzhaf III, "The Man Behind the Ban on Cigarette Commercials. Reader's Digest 1971
John F. Banzhaf III is the lawyer who staggered the tobacco and televisions industries with his successful demand that TV stations give free time for antismoking messages. The victory prompted Banzhaf to quit his New York law firm and devote his time to ASH. Time Magazine
One of the [tobacco] industry's leading critics. Peter Jennings, ABC-TV News
When John Banzhaf went into court on the cigarette advertising case -- a single man, mind you, two years out of law school -- he faced a legal army drawn from the top firms of both Washington and New York. And he won, on his own . . Hogan and Hartson, one of Washington's older and larger firms is not nearly so important in Washington Law as such individuals as Banzhaf . . . such men . . have the potential to tilt the balance of power in Washington law. The Superlawyers
Thus we look with admiration on the persistent antismoking efforts of young Washington lawyer John Banzhaf III. . . .It is encouraging that [Banzhaf and ASH] has been able to move with such effectiveness against the powerful tobacco industry. . . they are showing that the Goliaths of today are not beyond the range of the insistent citizen's slingshot. Christian Science Monitor
A potentially effective weapon in the public interest may exist in [ASH] . . . The medical profession has a rare opportunity to help the minuscule financial structure of ASH. It can do this through direct financial contribution and by encouraging patients to do likewise. New England Journal of Medicine
At the forefront of this campaign [to protect nonsmoking passengers] is a nonprofit organization called Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). Its roster of trustees and sponsors includes many persons prominent in medicine and public life. New York Times
Where There's Smoke There's Banzhaf & Co. . . The man whose single-handed legal attacks put anti-cigarette commercials on television. Washington Star
The rights of the nonsmoker to breathe air unpolluted by tobacco smoke have been vigorously asserted recently by a number of public interest groups created especially for this purpose. . . . Prominent among these is the Washington-based Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). The Politics of Cancer
If there's one group the tobacco industry fears more than any other, its ASH. . . Action on Smoking and Health, the foremost smoking and health organization in the country. The Passionate Nonsmokers' Bill of Rights
[ASH] played a major role in establishing the legal concept of the right of nonsmokers to be free from exposure to tobacco smoke. [It was also responsible for successfully introducing] more aggressive advocacy and direct lobbying" to the war on smoking. [Banzhaf] introduced the principle of private legal activism to influence legislation and other decisions on smoking and health issues. [ASH serves as the] legal action arm of the antismoking community." Surgeon General's Report 1989
Banzhaf lives for the sheer glee of sticking it to anyone in his sights, particularly another in the tobacco industry. (Banzhaf may be to Camels what Ralph Nader was to Corvairs.) . . Last year was a big one for Banzhaf. . . He was instrumental in getting the nation's airlines to ban smoking on most domestic flights. He's the bane of the tobacco industry. Regardie's Magazine
Stopping tobacco use by children is going to take all of us working together, community by community, block by block, parent by parent, child by child. . . . It's also going to take the energy of the 35,000 children who, with the help from Action on Smoking and Health, wrote letters to the President about his tobacco proposals. These 35,000 letters, which are now a part of the FDA record, represent the largest filing in American history ever made by children. Donna Shalala, Sec. of Health and Human Services, at a Special White House Award Ceremony
Because of a letter Banzhaf wrote in 1966, you can't watch cigarette ads of TV. USA Today
From the complaint he filed with the FCC in 1965 that helped to force tobacco advertisements off the airwaves, to the guerrilla warfare he wages that led to the 1990 ban on smoking on domestic airline flights, he's been a big thorn in the side of the tobacco industry. National Journal
He [Banzhaf] is the man who helped bring nonsmoking airplanes to United States skies. Nairobi [Kenya] Times
The industry was about to meet one of the most effective antismoking activists ever. . . Thus was born the first organization in the U.S. dedicated solely to fighting tobacco companies. Boston Globe
Mr. Banzhaf, then 27 and only two years out of law school, learned . . . that he had single-handedly won a Federal Communications order endorsing his novel legal argument that under the "fairness doctrine," broadcasters who ran cigarette commercials had to provide free time for anti-smoking sports. . . . Daring, inventive legal theories -- and maneuvers -- have been Mr. Banzhaf's trademark ever since that landmark victory. Today Mr. Banzhaf remains at the forefront of the antismoking movement as Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a public interest organization he founded in 1968. National Law Journal
Banzhaf is the classic Angry Man -- one of those peculiar one-person Washington institutions who fight the good fight as they see it and, id doing so, manage to change the world a bit while cheerfully enraging a goodly number of their fellow citizens. The 50-year old professor . . . rose to fame two decades ago crusading against the tobacco industry with the same panache that characterized Ralph Nader's assault on auto manufacturers. "The first restrictions on smoking on airplanes in the '70s, that was John's doing," says Richard A. Daynard, a Northeastern University law professor and co-chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project. Washington Post 1991
The story of the ad ban is an interesting one in itself, and perhaps its most salient moral is that, despite the immense wealth and power of the tobacco companies, there is, in fact, much that one person can do. In this case, the person was John Banzhaf, a 26-year-old law school graduate. Noting the saturation of TV with cigarette ads, he sent off a three-page letter to the Federal Communications Commission, arguing that the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to give anti-smoking groups their say. To nearly everyone's surprise, the FCC agreed, announcing in 1967 that henceforth broadcasters should air one antismoking spot for every three or four cigarette commercials. Washington Monthly
Now, after nearly 20 years of taking on the tobacco industry, he still thinks there's nothing like fighting the good fight. Or just fighting. Banzhaf is responsible, largely, for the "NO SMOKING" signs you see everywhere, and the no-smoking sections in restaurants, and the no-smoking policy on airplanes. Washington Post 1995
The Tobacco Institute's most active opposition has its headquarters
within four blocks of the Institute's plush digs. Action on Smoking
and Health (ASH) operates from two cramped rooms . . .If you want to get
involved in anti-smoking efforts, contact ASH. Reader's Digest 1980
Action on Smoking and Health
(ASH)
701 4th St. NW / Washington, DC
20001 / (202) 659-4310
A national nonprofit, scientific and educational organization founded
in 1967.
All donations are fully tax deductible.