F E AT U R E
David realised from the outset he that
the tobacco industry was not concerned
about the health of its customers.
David told how his first ever Winston
Man photo shoot was in 1981 in Mount
Evans, Colorado.
He recalls: “It really is not good to be a
smoker at 12,000ft. The air is thin and if
you are smoking you can’t breathe very
well at all. Half the time I was on oxygen
with a cup on my face and the other half
I was hanging off the mountain being
photographed.
“The funny thing was that I asked the
tobacco executives on the shoot ‘How
come you guy’s don’t smoke?’
“They had been laughing
me because I was on oxygen
and their reply was: ‘We don’t
smoke this shit, we just sell it’.
“I later testified to the accuracy of that
quote in Congress. It was a damning
indictment of exactly what these guys
thought about their own product.
“No-one had ever said that before and
once I made that public the tobacco
companies wanted me to go away but I
had no intention of doing so.”
He then spent many years of his life
helping educate young people about the
dangers of smoking and was an active
supporter of the anti-tobacco movement
as it spread across America.
The movement grew in strength and as
more people were starting to get ill from
smoking, health organisations such as
American Lung, American Cancer and
American Heart gained a powerful voice.
“States were paying billions in Medicare
and Medicaid payouts for people who
had been smoking for 40 years and now
were getting sick,” said David.
“In Mississippi, the Attorney General
sued the tobacco companies for $12
billion. He said he was sick and tired
of tax dollars from his state being used
to pay for people’s diseases when the
tobacco companies kept walking away
with the profits with no
responsibility whatsoever.
“Next Florida, Texas and Minnesota
all did the same and the four states
between them got a total of $46 billion in
a law suit.
“The 46 remaining states also wanted
some of that which could have resulted
in the tobacco industry having to come
up with another $600 billion so they
decided to negotiate instead.
“The tobacco companies came up with
the figure of $200 billion to be divided
between all the 46 remaining states
which also came with the caveat that
David Goerlitz at the ‘World Series of Vaping- Miami’ Oct 2016
they would not be able to sue Big
Tobacco or be a party of a class action
law suit to ban tobacco. The offer
was accepted.
“The real funny part about it, and I say
this tongue in cheek, is that the cigarette
companies got together and decided to
raise the price of cigarettes by 48 cents a
pack across the board so they didn’t lose
a dime from the settlement. It was the
smokers who paid for it all.”
Now that David had quit smoking and
had turned his back on the tobacco
industry he soon became the golden boy
for the anti-tobacco movement.
He said: “They used me as an educator
““So from 1988 I became
real popular with the people
promoting public health
message to quit smoking.”
in schools because that is where they
wanted to place their emphasis.
“I was awarded the 1990 World Health
Organization gold meda