When Utah Attorney Jan Graham looks back on her career, she'll be happy if she sees two marks in the "win" category.
One for her campaign against domestic violence, she said, and one against big tobacco.During a conference of law enforcement officials, educators and community leaders Tuesday, she lobbed a fresh grenade into the tobacco companies' barracks.
"Tobacco reform is not a blip-on-the-screen issue," Graham told those gathered at the annual summit of the Utah Substance Abuse and Anti-Violence Coordinating Committee. "It is the most serious public health crisis of our day."
In the United States, there are 47 million addicted smokers, she said, and 200,000 of them live in Utah. And the death tolls are commensurate, with 500,000 people dying each year from smoking and tobacco, Graham said.
In fact, more people die from tobacco-related illnesses each year than die from automobile accidents, homicides, drugs, AIDS, suicides and fires combined, she said.
With their customers dying off in droves, tobacco companies have had to find a way to replace their revenues. The most logical place to look? The children.
And for years, it has worked.
"Today, like every day in America, 3,000 children became regular smokers," Graham said.
The attack on America's children is not new. Advertisements geared toward younger, more vibrant audiences have been a staple of tobacco marketing for decades, she said.
The Marlboro Man, Virginia Slims and Joe Camel - which Graham called the "advertising feat of our generation" - all constitute part of "an insidious, intentional attack on children by big tobacco." She said the companies' deliberate, premeditated efforts feature positive imaging and big, big money.
The tobacco industry spends over $6 billion per year in advertising and marketing, Graham said, which results in $45 billion in revenues.
Now, it's time to strike back.
Graham said she was disappointed at Congress' inability to pass some form of tobacco legislation during the last session but vowed that neither she nor her compatriot attorneys general are giving up.
In 1991, the attorney general from Mississippi waged the first successful legal battle against tobacco companies, eventually winning a multimillion-dollar settlement for state-paid health costs due to tobacco-related illnesses.
In 1996, Graham led Utah into the battle, the 16th state to join a class-action lawsuit against the industry.
"Make no mistake about it," Graham said. "It is the locomotive of states coming down the track that is bringing big tobacco to its knees."
Graham looks forward to the battles ahead of her with great anticipation. But to win, she knows she'll have to have more influence with the kids.
Education is a must, she said. Kids have to know the facts about smoking: that there's nothing cool about lung disease or premature death.
The state is also working on a counter-marketing program to give kids the other side of smoking. Too many magazines and movies glamorize smoking, she said. Not enough show the truth.
Her own presentation, which she has delivered at several similar meetings across the state this year, is being condensed so law-enforcement and education officials can use it to teach kids on the grassroots level.
The warning has been sounded, Graham said. The locomotive is on its way and picking up steam.