In its advocacy guide to promoting outdoor smoking bans, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada instructs local anti-smoking advocates that all opposition to outdoor smoking bans is orchestrated by the tobacco industry. Those who advocate against such policies are not ordinary citizens, but are front groups or plants from the tobacco industry.
Speaking of initiatives to oppose outdoor smoking bans, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada states: "These initiatives are invariably undertaken by tobacco industry front groups or plants, not ordinary citizens. If this is happening in your community, try to follow the money and you’re sure to find the tobacco industry behind the scenes."
The Rest of the Story
According to Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, I must be a front group or plant from the tobacco industry because I published an op-ed opposing the outdoor smoking ban in New York City.
I challenge Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada to "follow the money" and "find the tobacco industry behind the scenes" as they claim is "invariably" the case.
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada is demonstrating one of the leading pieces of fallacious dogma in the tobacco control movement: the assumption that all opposition to smoking bans is invariably orchestrated by the tobacco industry and that there is no such thing as an ordinary citizen opposing a smoking ban.
If you take part in secondhand smoke policy training in the tobacco control movement, chances are that you will be taught that all opposition to smoking bans is orchestrated by the tobacco industry, that anyone who challenges the science connecting secondhand smoke exposure and severe health effects is a paid lackey of Big Tobacco, and that any group which disseminates information challenging these health effects is a tobacco industry front group. Consequently, the a chief strategy of tobacco control is to smear the opposition by accusing them of being tobacco industry moles. And in no situation should one say anything positive about an opponent, even if true.
More importantly, if you act in opposition to this dogma, you are cast out of the movement, swiftly and with a one-way ticket. I learned this the hard way.
In 1999, a sentinel event in my career occurred which woke me up to the fact that I had in fact been brainwashed to believe these errant ideas. I wrote an article summarizing some of these ideas. In the article, I suggested that if any group opposes a smoking ban, advocates should not discuss the substance of the opponents' claims, but should instead try to discredit them by exposing their ties to Big Tobacco.
I woke up one morning to find that, without my permission, my article had been posted on the internet by Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (ANR). Something about having my work published on the world wide web for everyone to see awoke me from my brainwashing and snapped me back to reality. Immediately, I realized that I had made a mistake. I called ANR and asked them to please change the article to reflect a clarification, in which I made it clear that I was not in fact accusing certain individuals who had challenged the severity of secondhand smoke health effects of having personally received money from tobacco companies.
To my shock, ANR refused to accede to my request, even though I was the author of the article. They responded that they did not want to say anything even remotely positive about an opponent and that they had to place their own political agenda ahead of my scientific integrity:
"we have concluded that the possible 'clarification' that you and I discussed is simply not feasible. There is a strong concensus that we do not want to post ANYTHING on our web page that can be construed as an apology or as backtracking from the position taken in the paper you wrote. More specifically, XXXXXX has convinced me that, given XXXXX's long history of attacking ETS science, it would be a mistake to state anything that would give him credence. ... I realize that your views on the matter are heart-felt and sincere, and that mere removal of your name from the paper, without more, will not be entirely satisfactory to you. But at this point ANR must put its political credibility ahead of what you consider to be your scientific credibility."
ANR then decided to completely disrespect my authorship rights and my copyright of the article, and to subsume copyright of the article for itself by publishing it on its website without my name. I never gave ANR permission to do this. What I told ANR clearly was that given its refusal to change my article as I re-wrote it, I wanted the article removed from its website. It was only when ANR refused to honor this author's request that I demanded that my name be removed from its website.
(Read the entire story here)
What turned out to be errant information about the nature of opposition to smoking bans was delivered to me via a systematic method of formal trainings in which these ideas were deliberately spread to me and other tobacco control advocates with the purpose of furthering the anti-smoking cause.
These ideas ran counter to my own pre-conceived and firmly held ideas about the nature of opposition to smoking bans and to challenges of the health effects of secondhand smoke. After all, I had many good friends who challenged the connection between secondhand smoke and chronic disease, so I "knew" that not everyone who challenges the science is a Big Tobacco lackey. I also had met many of the opponents of smoking bans and it never occurred to me that they were tobacco moles. Nevertheless, this wisdom was so strongly imparted upon me in the trainings (which were largely delivered by, or influenced by ANR) that I came to believe this information, even though it was at odds with my pre-conceived beliefs.
Importantly, only one perspective on this issue was presented to us in the trainings. There was no room for disagreement or challenge. These ideas were presented as scientific facts, not subject to debate. In fact, if we were to challenge the ideas, the implication was that we - ourselves - might be accused of working for Big Tobacco or receiving secret payoffs.
This dogma, however, is untrue. While it is certainly the case that most of the scientific challenges to secondhand smoke science came from tobacco industry-funded initiatives, there are a number of scientists and others who have challenged the science but are not paid by Big Tobacco to do so. The American Council on Science and Health, for example, has challenged the strength of the link between secondhand smoke and chronic disease, while acknowledging the acute effects of tobacco smoke. Martha Perske wrote some very well-researched and meticulous critiques of secondhand smoke science. I have myself challenged the claims made by many anti-smoking groups about the acute cardiovascular effects of secondhand smoke. So no - not everyone who suggests that secondhand smoke health claims have been exaggerated is a paid lackey of the tobacco industry.
Now, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada is demonstrating how this dogma plays out in practice. I challenge them to demonstrate that what they are instructing local advocates is true. I challenge Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada to "follow the money" and "find the tobacco industry behind the scenes" as they claim is "invariably" the case.
This is important, because if I've received that money, I need to find it myself. Think of the things I could be doing with it if only I knew where it was.
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