truth® Ads Will Continue to Save Lives!
American Legacy Foundation® Vindicated in Long Legal Battle with Lorillard Tobacco Company

8/22/2005
Washington, DC -- Executives with the American Legacy Foundation applauded today's decision in the Delaware Chancery Court, which found that its bold and effective youth smoking prevention advertising campaign, truth ®, does not vilify nor personally attack tobacco companies or their employees. While the decision will likely be appealed by the Lorillard Tobacco Company, the American Legacy Foundation is now closer to the end of a contentious, long-running dispute that threatened to close the foundation's doors and end the only effective national youth tobacco prevention campaign.

The truth ® campaign, launched in February 2000, is the largest national youth smoking prevention campaign and the only national campaign not directed by the tobacco industry. The campaign exposes the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about addiction, and the health effects and social consequences of smoking – allowing teens to make informed choices about tobacco use by giving them the facts about the industry and its products.

Many truth ® campaign ads are developed directly from actual tobacco industry documents for the purpose of providing teens with a window into cigarette advertising aimed at them. In this litigation, Lorillard did not contest the veracity of the foundation ads, but argued that any advertising that was remotely critical of the tobacco industry would be in violation of the Master Settlement Agreement's vilification clause.

“Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb has reasonably defined vilification and personal attack in a way that will allow our foundation to continue to tell American youth the facts about tobacco and the industry that markets its products to them. This decision will save hundreds of thousands of lives and we are grateful for it,” said Cheryl G. Healton, Dr. PH, president and CEO of the foundation.

The American Legacy Foundation was established in 1999 as a result of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five US territories and the tobacco industry. It serves as the national public health foundation devoted to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. The MSA provides restrictions for the foundation's advertising that prohibit it from “vilification” or “personal attack.”

The Honorable Stephen P. Lamb, Vice Chancellor of the Delaware Chancery Court concluded that the ads do not vilify the tobacco industry. In his ruling, Vice Chancellor Lamb said, “None of the ads subject the employees to the type of contemptuous language contained in other case law discussing vilification. There are not scurrilous and vitriolic attacks. There is no cruel slander. There is no social ostracism. There is no public ridicule, traduction or calumny. Although the employees may be described, either explicitly or implicitly, as liars, greedy executives, or authors of embarrassing documents, the ads do not vilify them.”

Vice Chancellor Lamb went on to say that the foundation's ads frequently use humor to grab viewer attention. “These ads clearly use preposterous situations as an attention-getting mechanism to contrast historical misrepresentations from the tobacco industry with current knowledge about the dangers of tobacco products,” he said.

The foundation's Board of Directors and staff follow a rigorous approval process to ensure compliance with the MSA. That process has resulted in ground breaking advertising with behavior changing resonance with the campaign's 12-17- year-old target audience. The American Journal of Public Health published findings in March 2005 crediting truth ® with accelerating the overall decline in youth smoking by 22 percent in the campaign's first two years, 2000-2002. This translates to 300,000 fewer youth smokers in 2002 due to the truth ® campaign.

“Today's decision will allow the American Legacy Foundation to continue its remarkably successful work to inoculate America's youth against nicotine addiction,” said General William Sorrell, Attorney General of Vermont and the Chair of the American Legacy Foundation's Board of Directors. “We have known for five years that truth ® works – now we can continue to provide a proven antidote to the national tobacco epidemic. More than 1200 Americans die every day due to smoking. It has to stop – and thankfully, truth ® will remain a part of the equation that brings it to an end,” he said.

Despite restrictions in the MSA that prohibit it from marketing or promoting its products to youth, the tobacco industry relies heavily on the youth market for its future, life-long customers. Statistics show that 80 percent of smokers try their first cigarette before the age of 18, and one-third to one-half go on to become regular smokers. Tobacco-related disease claims the lives of more than 430,000 Americans annually, making it the single largest cause of preventable death in the U.S.

The foundation's Board of Directors, which provides oversight to the foundation in the production of its advertising campaigns, lauded the decision as a public health victory. The foundation's bipartisan board is comprised of two sitting Governors, two state attorneys general and two state legislators, who in turn select leaders in public health and tobacco control to guide the foundation in its programs.

Former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano, who himself had declared tobacco as “Enemy #1” during his tenure, rallied a prestigious group of the nation's public health leaders, The Citizens' Commission to Protect the Truth.

“The American Legacy Foundation will continue to tell the truth to youth about tobacco – and the nation should be grateful for it,” said Califano.

The truth ® campaign in fact had been applauded in February 2005 by Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as helping the nation meet its Healthy People 2010 goals for reducing youth smoking – one of the only goals that will be met and perhaps exceeded.

“The truth ® campaign will one day go down in the annals of public health history for saving millions of young lives from tobacco addiction and premature death,” said Dr. Steven Schroeder, former chair of the American Legacy Foundation's Board of Directors, and a nationally recognized champion for anti-smoking efforts. In his pivotal role as the president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in the 1990s, the organization devoted critical resources and leadership to the tobacco control issue nationwide.

The American Legacy Foundation® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use through grants, technical assistance and training, youth activism, strategic partnerships, counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns, research, public relations, and outreach to populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco. The foundation's national programs include Circle of Friends®, Great Start®, a Priority Populations Initiative, Streetheory® and truth ®. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five US territories and the tobacco industry. Visit www.americanlegacy.org.