Tobacco control policy: strategies, success, & setbacks

de Beyer J, Brigden L W. Copublicaton of the World Bank and Research for International Tobacco Control (RITC), 2003, pp 189, $25.00. ISBN 0-8213-5402-7. paperback. ### Tobacco control policy Judging from the title of this work, Tobacco Control Policy , I thought about how the editors would design a different and maybe new policy topology to examine current strategies in tobacco control. That is not their intent. Ostensibly this book is an account of how six countries advocated for and passed tobacco control policies. The editors believed that if we could hear the stories of how tobacco control was defined, approached and implemented at the national level, from around the world, we would not only learn new strategies but also become more inspired in our work. The editors created six tobacco control policy case studies—Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Poland, South Africa, and Thailand—by interviewing 11 contributors who where central figures in their countries’ tobacco control movements. The editors sensed that while we spent hours in conferences learning about the rationale, approaches, and theoretical analysis of tobacco control policy, the rooms lit up when central figures told their behind the scenes stories of how they battled the socio-cultural, political …