Action on Smoking and Health
Let's get rid of cigarettes.
ASH is building a world with ZERO deaths from tobacco. Thanks to dramatic reductions in smoking, that world – a world where cigarettes are no longer sold for profit – is within reach.
Cigarettes are the only consumer good that kills when used as their manufacturer intends. This has become normal in our society, but it shouldn’t be.
It’s time for cigarettes to be regulated proportionate to the harm they cause.
We must unite to end the tobacco epidemic which has a known and clear path to eradication: ending the commercial sale of cigarettes.
When Sylvio started smoking to fit in and became a heavy smoker by age 14, he was far too young to know the reality of what his addiction would entail. He couldn’t give up smoking despite ongoing sickness, and unfortunately, his smoking addiction eventually took his life. Sylvio is survived by his wife Muriel who now lives with severe chronic shortness of breath and asthma, due to his secondhand smoke exposure.
Financials
Programs
Project Sunset
Our Project Sunset turns Philip Morris USA’s own Project Sunrise (initiated in 1995) around on its head. Project Sunrise was a scheme to renormalize smoking; we will instead phase out the sale of cigarettes.
Human Rights
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide. Our human rights approach to ending tobacco implores or requires governments to protect their citizens by implementing tobacco control laws and strategies to end the tobacco epidemic based on legally-binding human rights norms.
Criminal Liability
The lethal consequences of smoking have been known to tobacco corporations for decades, yet they continue to sell those products, with full knowledge that millions of deaths will be caused by the ordinary use of cigarettes. ASH's legal team is working to have tobacco corporations and executives charged with manslaughter.
Global Best Practices
ASH supports work at the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations (UN) to strengthen and implement the best practices for tobacco control, as outlined in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control - the legally-binding global treaty.
