The Half-Truth Initiative

How an anti-smoking group lost its way

The most famous anti-smoking campaign in history was branded, simply, as @truth. It was launched in 2000 by the American Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit organization funded with $1.5 billion from the proceeds of a class-action suit against Big Tobacco companies. Legacy and its advertising agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, produced hard-hitting TV commercials, including one called “Body Bag” in which young people piled bags of dead bodies outside the headquarters of Philip Morris, in a graphic reminder that smoking kills.

The industry hated the campaign, and for good reason. One in five teenagers then smoked. Over time, the work of the Legacy Foundation, which has been renamed Truth Initiative, helped to drive teen smoking to historic lows, according to researchers who studied the @truth campaign.

Last year, a mere 1.5 percent of middle school and high school students reported smoking in the past 30 days, according to the latest government survey.

“This is an amazing success story,” Robin Mermelstein, a former president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT), the world’s leading professional society focused on nicotine and tobacco, told Filter. “There should be a lot of cheering for the steep and consistent decline in teen tobacco use.”