An international delegation met for the 11th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health in Chicago to create strategies for reducing tobacco use. The convention, which ran from August 6 to 11, attracted over 4,500 activists from four continents.

“The tobacco industry with their billions can never generate the enthusiasm, support, and friendship that was shown at the meeting,” said Dr. Harley Stanton, a Seventh-day Adventist who has participated in the last five world conferences.

Stanton, a health spokesperson for the Adventist Church in the South Pacific and member of the conference’s planning committee, presented a workshop at the conference on team building among activists. Conference planners hoped to unify key anti-tobacco activists, teaching them how to promote legislative change in their countries.

“This was a new and exciting initiative because about 60 to 70 percent of the participants had never attended a world conference on tobacco,” Stanton said. The conference strengthened the delegates’ knowledge about tobacco policies.

United States Surgeon General, David Satcher, presented a composite review of strategies that have proven successful in preventing and reducing tobacco use. His August 9 report included information about subjects from educational to economic strategies in tobacco control. 

The conference also recognized successful anti-tobacco warriors. The new Luther Terry Awards, likened to “Nobel Prizes” of tobacco control, were given to six people at the convention. “I have never felt more palpable energy following a meeting than I felt following the presentations [of the awards],” Stanton said. He served on the 12-member international committee that chose the recipients from 200 nominations.

The conference, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, was held in the United States for the first time in 25 years.

The Adventist church strongly promotes a tobacco-free lifestyle and has developed several anti-smoking programs including the innovative “Breathe-free” smoking cessation program.