Cliff Douglas
President and CEO
Global Action to End Smoking

Cliff Douglas is President and Chief Executive Officer of Global Action to End Smoking, an independent, nonprofit grantmaking foundation dedicated to accelerating the end of the smoking epidemic, which remains the leading preventable cause of death. He leads international efforts to elevate a holistic, science-based approach to ending smoking, emphasizing the continuum of risk among tobacco and nicotine products and prioritizing the needs of disadvantaged populations including in low- and middle-income countries.

He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where he has taught courses in tobacco control and policy and directed the Tobacco Research Network. His popular online course, Tobacco & Nicotine: Public Health, Science Policy, and Law, may be found at https://www.coursera.org/learn/tobacco-and-nicotine-public-health-science-policy-law. He served as the American Cancer Society’s Vice President for Tobacco Control and as Tobacco Control Policy Advisor for the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health and the U.S. Surgeon General during the Obama administration. He was a lead author of the landmark U.S. Government report, “Ending the Tobacco Epidemic: A Tobacco Control Strategic Action Plan for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”

As Special Counsel on Tobacco Issues for Rep. Martin T. Meehan, he prepared a 111-page prosecution memo that led the U.S. Attorney General to launch a criminal investigation and subsequently file the Justice Department’s successful civil racketeering action against the major tobacco companies. He also served on the legal team for state attorneys general in the litigation that resulted in the Master Settlement Agreement and in other successful landmark lawsuits on behalf of people who had suffered injury and death from smoking. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan.

Sessions with Cliff Douglas

14:25 - 15:25
Health care providers, adults who smoke tobacco, and the public at large all have misperceptions about nicotine and the relative risk of non-combustible nicotine products. Misperceptions can lead to health care providers dispensing inaccurate information, motivating policy makers to pass laws that don’t improve public health, and preventing adults who smoke from switching to less harmful smoke-free products. Hear nicotine science, policy, and advocacy experts discuss long-standing misperceptions about nicotine. What misperceptions does the public believe, and where did those misperceptions come from? How can we meaningfully move the public’s understanding of nicotine and smoke-free products without inadvertently promoting use to unintended audiences (i.e., nonusers and youth)? What more can the FDA do to inform healthcare providers, people who smoke, and the public about the continuum of risk of various nicotine products? What can academic researchers do? What about manufacturers?

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