As anti-tobacco activists meet in Chicago this week to formulate their strategy against Big Tobacco's worldwide influence, international anti-alcohol groups can look to the tobacco-control movement for inspiration in their fight against multinational alcohol companies.The fight against tobacco marketing and advertising abuses holds many lessons for the alcohol-control movement, according to Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Myers said that while the battle against the tobacco industry is far from over, critics have succeeded in changing public perception of tobacco companies.
"The image of the industry has changed; they're not seen as just another industry," he told attendees at the Global Alcohol Policy Conference, held Aug. 3-5 in Syracuse, N.Y. "That's why Philip Morris is running those ads" on television touting the company's philanthropic efforts, said Myers. "That's all designed to bring Philip Morris back into the mainstream."
All in all, Philip Morris is spending $200 million to shore up its image, including wining and dining power-brokers at the recent Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, said Myers. "The fact that they had to do that shows we've made some progress" in altering public perception of the industry, Myers said. Another indicator: for the first time, government is spending what Myers calls "real money" on tobacco prevention efforts.
A critical step in changing public opinion about smoking and the tobacco industry was shifting the focus of the debate from health alone to looking at tobacco use as a public-health and political problem -- in other words, by taking the focus off individual smokers' rights and responsibilities (a favorite theme of both alcohol and tobacco lobbyists) and placing it on the impact of smoking on society at large.
This shift helped foster recognition that "this is a problem where someone makes money by creating disease, and who will spend every dollar they can to keep it there," according to Myers. Faced with a long history of accepted use and a barrage of industry marketing and PR, tobacco-control groups took their campaign directly to the people, he said. "The industry recognized this 40 years ago, when the first evidence of tobacco harm came out," Myers noted. "They didn't call the doctors; they called their PR firms" to beat the drum about "controversial science" and individual freedom, he said.
After many years, Myers said, tobacco control groups finally came to a similar recognition about the power of mass communications to change public attitudes. The key to effecting policy change -- particularly in the face of an entrenched and well-funded opponent -- is to achieve harmony with public opinion, according to Myers. "No matter what form of government you have," Myers told the international conference audience, "if politicians aren't afraid that the mood of their constituents are in agreement with you, they won't do the right thing ... So make sure the message you send is one that fits your culture."
Successful tactics from the tobacco wars that also can be applied in the fight against irresponsible marketing practices by the alcohol industry include focusing attention on non-user victims. "Once we started talking about secondhand smoke, suddenly the issue wasn't smokers' right to choose, but nonsmokers' right to clean air," Myers noted. Similarly, alcohol activists could point to the myriad social costs of alcohol misuse and addiction.
Focusing on corporate wrongdoing also is critical in winning the hearts and minds of the public and overcoming arguments about individual rights and responsibilities. "We see in the recent jury verdicts against the industry that these jurors don't like to give money to smokers, but the debate in the jury room has changed; people are more angry about the tobacco industry's actions than about the smokers' actions," Myers said.
"He who frames the debate is going to succeed in the long run," he stressed.
Boston University School of Public Health 
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