Stan Glantz

I heard a lunchtime talk by Stan Glantz, an incredible anti-tobacco researcher and policy-maker. Back in the 1970s, he became very interested in tobacco company tactics to sell cigarettes and ways to combat them. At the time, it was already known that smoking was bad for the smoker. However, this had very little effect on smoking. It soon became clear that the controversy over smoking would be fought over its effects on other people. In fact, the tobacco companies knew that if smoking was shown to be harmful for spouses, children, roommates, etc., the economic consequences would be devastating. That's an interesting concept, but one that makes a lot of sense. Many people believe they have the right to harm themselves, but few people would assert the right to harm others.

In any case, the tobacco companies decided to fight the tobacco wars over the restaurant industry. They tried to make the case that restaurants who decided to have separate smoking and non-smoking sections would lose an unbelievable amount of money (30%). This ploy was fairly successful, but Stan Glantz found it suspicious. He finally used the case study of Beverley Hills, which went non-smoking for a short period of time, to show that restaurants did not suffer at all. Thus, he single-handedly began a fight against the all-powerful tobacco companies. Later, he conducted studies to prove that second hand smoke causes a tremendous increase in heart attack admissions to the ER. From an against-all-odds position, he snowballed into the opposition against the tobacco industry today.

Most of all, his presentation was awesome. He was an excellent storyteller, throwing in humor, vignettes, and science into this beautifully educational yet immensely entertaining tale of the last three decades. I highly suggest going to his talks; they're completely worth it.