Wednesday, December 15, 1999
Thank you Greg for accepting our "rendez-vous" . May I ask you to introduce yourself ?
I'm Gregory Connolly, director of the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program.
I have been working at Tobacco Control for about 15 years. I research
on the dangers of smokeless tobacco use and international trade issues.
I was recently appointed to serve as an ex-officio member of the board
of directors of the American Legacy Foundation and in that capacity,
will be assisting the Foundation working with state and local programs.
1. Massachusetts has had an active tobacco control program for 7 years now, since the initiative earmarking part of the tax for its funding was passed in november 1992. Can you briefly tell us the main results you got and what's next ?
We've had impressive results since we began the campaign 6 years ago, cigarette sales have fallen 35%. That represents over a billion dollars not being spent on tobacco products. Adult cigarette smoking has fallen from 25% to 19% and our daily adult smoking rate is 14%. These are very impressive figures given the fact that adult cigarette smoking hasn't changed in the rest of the country. Our adolescent smoking rates have also fallen from 31% to about 24% (12 - 17 year olds). The campaign has been a great success and we are very pleased with that.
2. How many people work with you for the tobacco control program and what is your annual budget ?
Our current budget is $36 million per year for a population of about 6 million people. With the new settlement funds, the budget will be increased by $22 million more bringing it up to about $58 million. It turns out to an expenditure of about $10 per person. Our direct staff is approximately 32 people and in the field, we probably have about 300-400 others working on tobacco control in some way.
3. You now have a long experience managing media campaigns. Can you tell us what is an efficient mix ? what themes are the most efficient ? is there a minimum of presence you have to reach to be efficient ? For example, some countries wage one campaign per year that lasts one month and then feel they have done their duty as far as tobacco control is concerned.
We have waged a very aggressive media campaign. I don't think any one message really works. Multiple strategies are needed. Media must be combined with other interventions that occur at the local level. One 30 second ad is not going to prevent anyone from smoking or help anyone quit, but a series of 30 second ads tied in with clean indoor air, education in the schools and enforcement of laws of tobacco sales to minors will result in hundreds of thousands of young people not starting and the same number of adults quitting. We have embraced two strategies for the media campaign that we call a good cop/bad cop approach. One series of ads can be very aggressive which graphically shows the harm that smoking causes real people. And, in these ads, we tell real stories about these people that both youngsters and adults can relate to. It is something that we learned from a campaign conducted in Australia a few years ago.
On the other hand, we air light, humorous ads that gives youngsters and adults a little bit of a rest from the more hard hitting ads. We call these umbrellas and under each umbrella will be messages for youth, adult smokers and public opinion leaders.
4. What about the internet ? Until now you have created two web sites in 1999, getoutraged.com and freshair.net, are you satisfied with them ? any new openings coming ?
We have four websites. One is getoutraged.com which is a public opinion site that has evolved over time to include testimonials that people write about loved ones who died from smoking as well as a quick and easy way to search the tobacco industry documents on the net. Freshair.net is the second website that we put up for adolescents in which we imbed tobacco messages in anything from playing games online to getting the scores for local high school football games. At the first of the year, we hope to launch www.trytostop.com which is an interactive counseling site that we hope to build over time. And, finally, we have our own homepage, www.state.ma.us/dph/mtcp, for the program itself. We are very hopeful that the new online counseling site will help not only Massachusetts residents, but other people around the world that may wish to access it.
5. Tobacco control is a very local as well as a very global problem. How do you contribute to the global fight ?
Could new initiatives be launched to improve interstate (within the US) and international (worldwide) cooperation ?
Tobacco control is a global problem and I am honored to be an
advisor to the World Health Organization's Expert Panel on Smoking and
Health. I have testified before the GATT, on behalf of WHO, about 10
years ago on a complaint that the United States filed against Thailand
for refusing to accept U.S. cigarettes. I think that the GATT decision
was historic in that it affirmed the rights of sovereign nations to
limit competition for harmful products as long as they did it for both
domestic and international cigarettes. I am concerned with the
liberalization of world trade and that multi-national tobacco companies
will become stronger and have the opportunity to penetrate close
markets of the developing world. I think that we have to be very
vigilant about this and as the chairman for the subcommittee for the
World Conference of Smoking and Health that will be held in Chicago
next year, I hope to bring in experts to talk about the impact of
international trade and world health.
Thanks very much for the rendez-vous.
Thank you Greg for taking the time to be with us today.
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