Philip Morris also sought to introduce fiscal and ethics complaints through state government groups, to pressure state Attorneys General to act on those allegations. Additionally, PM pursued allegations of waste in charities, focusing on charities in ASSIST coalitions.190 TI was also heavily involved in preparations to counter the ASSIST program. Early in 1992, Samuel Chilcote, Jr., the TI president, made anti-ASSIST efforts TI’s “ongoing, toppriority project.”TI’s plan involved preparing field staff with information about ASSIST funding and expenditures, and, in conjunction with the tobacco industry law firm Covington & Burling, exploring the use of local “sunshine” laws to require additional reporting of ASSIST financial information.TI also planned to increase their field staff’s ability to disrupt any ASSIST legislative activity in several states, including Virginia.Finally, TI coordinated efforts with Lorillard, PM, and RJ Reynolds to increase the dissemination of their ineffective “smoking accommodation” messaging in ASSIST states to counter ASSIST programming.Misuse of Freedom of Information Act requests was another disruptive tactic that had two results that were favorable to the tobacco industry.First, these requests tended to bring ASSIST coalitions’ advocacy work to a halt as they struggled to comply with voluminous requests for information, much of it spurious. Secondly, they gave the industry useful information about ASSIST spending and programming that could be used to organize attacks.In most of the 17 ASSIST states,rolling shelving systems health advocates reported that the tobacco industry’s efforts to disrupt ASSIST efforts had some impact on their effectiveness, despite the fact that many of the tobacco industry’s claims were meritless.

Carter Steger reported that “every now and then Philip Morris would flood our 800 number [when ASSIST was phone banking] so we couldn’t call out.”Marge White, an Assistant Field Director for ASSIST recalled in a 2009 interview that the tobacco industry efforts to oppose Virginia’s ASSIST program had several components. She noted that the industry heavily lobbied the legislature against ASSIST’s policy components. In addition, the tobacco industry approached several of the venues that ASSIST was helping to go voluntarily smoke free and attempted to dissuade them from adopting clean indoor air policies.White also recalled that law firms working for the tobacco industry would submit FOIA requests for significant amounts of data very close to Virginia ASSIST deadlines for quarterly reports or grant applications, causing a lot of disruption.While actively opposing public policy efforts, the tobacco industry did not oppose Virginia ASSIST efforts regarding youth prevention programming.Because it was uncontroversial, a consensus emerged in the ASSIST coalition that youth should be the key focus population and that most resources should be devoted towards youth activities, primarily training youth to become community advocates for other youth.These projects included assessments of the proximity of tobacco advertising to schools, spot-checking tobacco retailer compliance with sales-to-minors laws and advocating for voluntary clean indoor air policies in their communities in venues such as malls and restaurants.ASSIST provided materials such as stickers and signs for distribution.ASSIST’s adult staff also designed and distributed curriculum guides to schools that included lesson plans on how to integrate tobacco prevention into such subjects as math, social studies and English.ASSIST adult staff also participated in conferences targeting teachers to offer sessions on tobacco prevention and to distribute the curriculum guides.After a planning period, ASSIST began advocacy in Virginia in 1992. During that year, ASSIST had teething problems related to membership and leadership.

The Membership Committee recognized that ASSIST had gaps in important membership segments, including minority populations, the media, and the politically involved.In addition, a lack of strong leadership and confusion regarding the role of local coalitions hampered coalition recruitment efforts.By later in the year, a permanent chairperson position was established and ASSIST was able to conduct coalition trainings.In 1993, ASSIST established working relationships with the Tri-Agency Council and GASP, the only other active tobacco control groups in the state at the time.Together, the three groups successfully urged Gov. Wilder to veto SB 859, a 1993 smoker’s rights bill supported by the tobacco industry.ASSIST was also invited to assist Wilder’s staff in developing a plan to implement the youth access requirements of the Synar Amendment , which was the first time ASSIST was able to work with the governor’s inner circle.During this year, ASSIST also developed a legislative policy agenda that aimed to make the VICAA stronger by repealing preemption;however, during 1993 ASSIST’s legislative activity was largely confined to planning future activity and monitoring legislative activity. ASSIST’s local coalition activity during 1993 consisted mainly of helping local coalition members develop and distribute voluntary tobacco control policies and distributing “awareness” materials such as stickers and banners to raise awareness of tobacco control issues in the state.Clean indoor air policies for schools became a focus in 1994. ASSIST placed clean indoor air ads in high school and university sports programs, and delivered awareness materials such as “Smoke Free Class of 2000” kits to schools.ASSIST also worked to recognize and publicize venues that had voluntarily gone smoke free.During 1994, many malls had surprised ASSIST by unexpectedly adopting clean indoor air policies.177 ASSIST worked to capitalize on the publicity generated by the mall policies by creating signage to distribute to the malls promoting their smoke free status.

Similar signage was provided to some restaurants in Virginia that went smoke free.White recalled that all of the indoor malls in Virginia eventually went smoke free except for one, as well as several hundred restaurants.In addition, in 1994 ASSIST became more involved in tracking legislative activities, setting up a hotline that provided information about legislation being considered in the General Assembly, and training ASSIST coalition members about legislative issues.These activities coincided with increased tobacco industry opposition to ASSIST nationwide involving accusations of illegal lobbying tactics and misusing Freedom of Information Act requests to hamper ASSIST activities . ASSIST responded by issuing clarifications about the scope of acceptable advocacy, reiterating that members acting in their role as ASSIST representatives could not issue materials that adopted a position or opinion about proposed legislation.Another ASSIST goal was to limit smoking in sports venues. Due to the perception that changing stadiums’ smoking policies in a tobacco growing and manufacturing state would be more easily accomplished with a focus on youth prevention, the ASSIST coalition asked their media committee to develop a youth-focused program. The project began by identifying existing partners who had sports programs or organizational ties to sports programs, and in 1995 ASSIST approached 7 minor league baseball organizations requesting donated advertising space.All of the teams refused but did allow paid counter-advertising. Eventually, some of the teams allowed sponsored youth tobacco prevention events and ASSIST helped to promote these clean indoor air activities.The public response was positive, and by 1996 ASSIST offered to assist the management of these teams to develop no-smoking policies by providing them with model policies.By 1997, 3 stadiums had adopted 100% smoke free seating and 4 stadiums had adopted smoke free family sections.ASSIST’s involvement in sports arena efforts expanded to a semi-professional soccer franchise, when the Hampton Roads Mariners decided to go smoke free after working with ASSIST.ASSIST also created some events to capitalize on their relationship with the teams, such as creating a “Sack the Pack” event in partnership with a local television sports department. ASSIST involvement also lead to one minor league baseball manager joining the coalition,rolling shelving racks resulting in the removal of a Marlboro Man advertisement from that team’s stadium.Virginia’s most notable accomplishment during ASSIST was a 4.7% reduction in adult smoking prevalence, second only to Maine, and a remarkable accomplishment for a tobacco state.

This also was better than the greatest reduction achieved by a state not in the ASSIST program, Georgia, at 4.4%188 Another accomplishment of ASSIST, in the opinion of Carter Steger, was that “just forming coalitions across the state on tobacco control was a huge accomplishment in Virginia.”83 Marge White noted that the ASSIST local coalitions, mostly developed by the Virginia Department of Health , and their relationships with the national health voluntary organizations continued after ASSIST ended.ASSIST had difficulty finding support among legislators for its policy goals. In a 2009 interview, Carter Steger remarked that, “Every now and then you’d find a champion, but that was more out of personal conviction … there’s this acceptance in Virginia that tobacco is so strong – Philip Morris is so strong that you kind of have to accept that you’re not going to be as progressive as another state.”Another issue was stability among coalition members, with staff turnover being a significant problem. Steger recalled, “I think there was a period of time during ASSIST that was very stable in terms of staffing. … But when the funding streams changed, turnover started – The nonprofit world traditionally has turnover. But even in the health departments when the funding streams changed, this ability of the staff that had worked as a cohesive unit started to change.”83 ASSIST laid the groundwork for some ongoing tobacco control work. One of the coalition partners, the University of Virginia’s Institute for Quality Health , was awarded a Smoke Less States grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop a collaboration between tobacco growers and tobacco control advocates. These efforts eventually lead to the Southern Tobacco Communities Project, and to the Virginians for a Healthy Future youth smoking cessation group .ASSIST also stimulated the formation of the VDH’s Tobacco Use Control Program, and for VDH to remain active after the ASSIST program ended in tobacco control work, keeping its network of local coalitions active and ready for collaboration with future statewide tobacco control coalitions. Virginia ASSIST, however, generally adopted weak policy change goals and focused on conservative and low-impact programming that carried little risk. ASSIST failed to target the tobacco industry aggressively and instead focused on encouraging voluntary clean indoor air policies on a local level. ASSIST did not fight statewide preemption and did not seek any statewide legislative policies. After the completion of the ASSIST program, the funding for TUCP shifted from NCI to the National Tobacco Control Program funding from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health . The migration to CDC funding represented a transitional period for TUCP, as long-time staff members like Neal Graham and Marge White left and TUCP took on new staff and adjusted to the new parameters and lower levels of funding. Schaeffer recalled that these changes caused disruptions.In addition, local coalition partners needed to be retrained. TUCP provided technical assistance, training, and similar materials to Virginia advocates. One of the groups that was provided technical assistance by TUCP was the Virginians for a Healthy Future coalition.181 In addition, TUCP maintained close ties with a network of local coalitions and health districts and partner organizations that shared TUCP’s mission. These local coalitions were not focused on policy change, but instead worked on local cessation, community education, and promotion of voluntary clean indoor air policies.The SmokeLess States Initiative was a series of three programs from 1993 to 2004 funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and administered by the University of Virginia School of Medicine. SLS was intended to support statewide tobacco control coalitions by implementing several policy goals: 1) reducing the number of children and young people who start using tobacco; 2) reducing the number of people who continue using tobacco; and increasing the public’s awareness that reducing tobacco use is an important component of any major effort at health care reform.Virginia received a grant in each of the three phases of the program.In 1994, Virginia was awarded a two-year capacity building grant to build a tobacco control coalition to implement the policy goals of SLS. The grant was revised and renewed in 2000, at which time the grant applications more explicitly prevented the funds from being used for lobbying, as RWJF’s grantees had been the subject of allegations that funds were inappropriately being used for lobbying purposes.The intention of the grant renewal was to shift the program to a policy-only model, embodied in a three-year grant of up to $1.5 million, with the University of Virginia again designated as the grantee.