Last year, Duluth became the first major city in Minnesota to pass a smoke-free restaurant ordinance. The first section of the ordinance (Article VII. Smoking in Public Places) contains four categories of facts, three of which are health related and one addresses business economic hardship from implementation. Yet, the ordinance does much more to protect the local hospitality industry from unfounded economic hardships than to protect public health. Three sets of science claims emerged during the debate to pass the ordinance: health effects of secondhand smoke (biomedical sciences), ventilation as a solution to secondhand smoke (engineering), and economic impacts (economic science). Advocates failed to promote a robust health oriented-ordinance, embraced industry's economic frame, and supported a weak ordinance.
Despite the fact that industry's engineering and economic claims were unfounded but advocates' health claims were documented, industry trivialized the scientific evidence on secondhand smoke's health effects in order to advance engineering claims on the merits of ventilation as a solution to secondhand smoke. Industry's economic claims of adverse impacts and engineering claims of ventilation neutralized tobacco control advocate's biomedical science-based claims. Advocates abandoned their bio-medical science and allowed industry's economic hardship frame to dominate the debate, thus weakening the ordinance.
Industry pursued a strategy of non-health based science claims to confuse the public and policy makers. It reframed the issue as one of business owners' rights, economic hardships, and ventilation. Public health advocates need to actively challenge industry's multiple science claims, and effectively communicate them to local decision-makers and the public.
Learning Objectives: Learning Objectives: Participants will get a much greater understanding about the use of science claims and their frames in debates over the enactment of local tobacco control ordinances They will be able to: --Identify specific claims and their respective frames from biomedical science, engineering, and economic science, and recognize their proponents in the case of the Duluth, Minnesota smoke-free restaurant ordinance debate. --Articulate how each participating group in the debate used science claims to control the debate and influence the City Council's agenda. --Recognize the importance of the timing of the bio-medical claims on the health effects of secondhand smoke. --Articulate the timing and strategic placement of the tobacco and hospitality industries economic science and engineering claims over the costs of implementing the ordinance to restaurants and the efficacy of ventilation technology as a solution of second hand smoke respectively. --Recognize how the tobacco and hospitality industry used a ventilation dealer's unfounded health claims to promote an engineering solution to the secondhand smoke problem --Articulate the tobacco industry's mobilization of the National Smokers Alliance to influence the ordinance through "Freedom Fax" messages from local business owners to members of the Duluth City Council At the conclusion of the session, participants will be able to: 1. Articulate the science claims, their respective frames, and their proponents in the case of the 2000 Duluth smoke-free ordinance debate. 2. Describe 3-4 strategies (and tactics) used by the tobacco and hospitality industries to promote unfounded engineering and economic science claims to weaken this ordinance. 3. Evaluate the role of the public health advocacy community and more specifically their strategy, very early in 2000, to compromise the integrity of their bio-medical science claims on the health effects of secondhand smoke; explain why they failed to support a stronger ordinance. 4. Discuss 2 ways to identify unfounded industry claims in the engineering and economic science domains and communicate them to policy-makers and the public.
Keywords: Tobacco Policy, Tobacco Industry
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Duluth Hospitality Association
Philip Morris
Honeywell
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.