Action on Smoking and Health, US

Action on Smoking and Health, US (ASH) was originally organized in 1967. It is a national legal-action antismoking and nonsmokers' rights organization which is entirely supported by tax-deductible contributions. Its principal activities incluce serving as a legal action arm of the nonsmoking community, bringing or joining in legal actions concerning smoking, and insuring that the voice of the nonsmoker is heard.

= Description =

ASH is the organization that first compelled airlines to provide nonsmoking sections, and ultimately ban smoking on virtually all domestic flights. ASH also was responsible for forcing broadcasters to provide free time for antismoking messages, by applying the Fairness Doctrine. These actions caused the first major drop in cigarette consumption ever. Actions by ASH ultimately drove cigarette commercials off the air entirely in 1971, and ASH went to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep them off. ASH convinced major insurance companies to require smokers to bear more of their fair share of the enormous costs of smoking by paying more for health insurance. ASH pressured the federal government into mandating stronger health warnings in cigarette advertisements, banning smoking on public buses and requiring smoke detectors in airplane lavatories.(ASH 5/94)

The original Executive Director was John F. Banzhaf, III, a professor of law at Georgetown. ASH publishes Smoking and Health Review bulletins. ASH wants to guarantee every nonsmoker the right to breathe unpolluted air in all public places and workplaces, eliminate government subsidies and supports for the tobacco industry, ban all advertising and promotion of tobacco products, prohibit the sale to children under 18 and shift the financial burden of smoking to smokers and the tobacco companies.(ASH 5/94).

Contact
Action on Smoking and Health U.S. 2013 H Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20006, USA

Phone: (202) 659-4310

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