Fought for Tobacco Justice
In February 1995, at the direction of Governor Chiles, the state of Florida filed suit against the tobacco industry. The state's lawsuit had three key goals: to recover the billions of dollars Florida spent treating Medicaid patients suffering from smoking-related illnesses; to protect children from tobacco's callous marketing; and to force the tobacco industry to tell the truth about their deadly product.
Governor Chiles called this lawsuit "the best fight of my life" because while the tobacco industry spent millions of dollars to hire lobbyists and "experts" to defeat him, Chiles had the truth and the people on his side. Chiles battled Big Tobacco for three years in the state Legislature, in the courthouse, and in the court of public opinion. In the end, Chiles prevailed.
On August 25, 1997, the tobacco industry surrendered to Chiles and agreed to pay the state of Florida $11.7 billion over a 25-year period to settle the state's case, an amount later increased to $13 billion. Chiles earmarked the money to pay the state's share for health care for Florida's children and families.
Equally important to the principled Chiles, though, was the industry's agreement to remove billboards and transit advertisements from the state and to fund a $200 million anti-smoking campaign targeting youth.
Every year, an estimated 40,000 Florida kids start smoking — and a third of them will eventually die from a smoking-related illness. The Chiles/MacKay administration recruited its most credible allies to educate young people about the dangers of picking up this deadly habit: teenagers. Florida's Tobacco Pilot Program asked teens to make this fight their own, and gave teenagers a leadership role in a cutting-edge campaign against tobacco.
At a statewide Teen Tobacco Summit, teens developed Truth, an anti-tobacco advertising campaign. The Truth marketing campaign included television, radio and print advertisements that were both irreverent and aggressive. An advisory board of teenagers was set up to review and approve all of the advertisements, many of which featured Florida teens.
