Impact Samantha’s courage and childlike approach
to Andropov became a symbol of hope for the peace-
ful resolution of world problems. Six years after
her death, the Cold War ended. Her direct impact
on the Cold War is difficult to assess, but she was
warmly remembered in both the Soviet Union and
the United States, as well as around the world.
Further Reading
Galicich, Anne.Samantha Smith: A Journey for Peace.
Minneapolis: Dillon Press, 1987. Account of
Smith’s life for juvenile readers.
Samantha Smith. http://www.samanthasmith.info/
index.htm. Web site dedicated to Smith that in-
cludes a historical time line and copies of her cor-
respondence with Andropov.
Smith, Samantha.Journey to the Soviet Union.Boston:
Little, Brown, 1985. Smith’s own account of her
trip to the Soviet Union.
Frederick B. Char y
See also Cold War;Day After, The; Foreign policy of
the United States; Military spending; Reagan’s “Evil
Empire” speech; Soviet Union and North America;
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
Smoking and tobacco
Definition Production, consumption, and health
consequences of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and
chewing tobacco
During the 1980’s, an estimated 390,000 people in the
United States died from complications due to cigarette smok-
ing. Despite accelerated efforts by the tobacco industr y to
market tobacco products, the emergence of antismoking
efforts—including significant antitobacco legislation—
resulted in a steady decline in U.S. smoking throughout the
decade.
In 1978, Joseph Califano, head of the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare under President
Jimmy Carter, proposed several actions to fight ciga-
rette smoking. These actions included raising taxes
on cigarettes, eliminating smoking on airplanes and
in restaurants, and ending government subsidies to
tobacco growers. With little support for the propos-
als from others in the Carter administration and
strong opposition from the tobacco industry, many
of these proposals were blocked. The plan, however,
laid the essential groundwork for a more success-
ful campaign against smoking that emerged in the
1980’s.
One of the most important steps in the campaign
against smoking and tobacco was the appointment
of C. Everett Koop as U.S. surgeon general in 1981.
Koop emerged as a powerful antismoking advo-
cate, authoring reports on environmental tobacco
smoke, nicotine addiction, and the negative health
consequences of smoking for women. At a national
conference of antismoking groups, delegates devel-
oped the “Blueprint for Action,” which outlined
the necessary steps to build a more aggressive anti-
smoking movement. The following year, the Ameri-
can Cancer Society, the American Lung Association,
and the American Heart Association formed a strong
coalition called Smoking or Health and launched a
rigorous antismoking lobbying campaign in Wash-
ington, D.C. In 1985, the American Medical Associa-
tion called for a complete ban on cigarette advertis-
ing and promotion. During the same year, the city of
Los Angeles banned smoking in most public places
and in many businesses.
Regulating Smokeless Tobacco Although it was
slow in coming, strong evidence had accumulated
by the mid-1980’s that smokeless tobacco also pre-
sented significant health risks, particularly that of
oral cancer. The evidence mounting against smoke-
less tobacco worried public health officials, because
smokeless tobacco use had been rising among young
boys, in part because they thought it would not cause
cancer or be addictive. Smokeless tobacco products
had not been required by Congress to carry warning
labels; however, the state of Massachusetts enacted
legislation to require such labels, and twenty-five
other states decided to follow suit. The federal gov-
ernment enacted the Smokeless Tobacco Health Ed-
ucation Act of 1986, which required three rotated
warning labels on smokeless tobacco packages. The
law also banned advertising smokeless tobacco prod-
ucts on electronic media and required warning la-
bels on all packaging and all advertising except bill-
boards.
The Tobacco Industry Seeks New Markets Efforts
to educate the public about the risk factors for can-
cer and cardiovascular disease contributed to an
overall decline in nicotine dependence. By the end
of the 1980’s, more than half of men and more than
half of American white adults who had ever smoked884 Smoking and tobacco The Eighties in America