Anne Landman

TobaccoWiki editor Anne Landman was a registered respiratory therapist for twelve years prior to obtaining degrees in Environmental Restoration/Waste Management Technology and Communications. After graduation she worked in the industrial health and safety department on a uranium mining Superfund cleanup project in western Colorado, monitoring air quality and site safety. In 1996 Anne accepted a position with the American Lung Association of Colorado (ALAC). While working for ALAC she gathered evidence describing a little-known merchandising arrangement between cigarette companies and retailers. Anne discovered that tobacco companies were paying generous placement fees to retailers in exchange for strategic placement of self-service cigarette displays out of the line of sight of clerks and near the doors of the establishment. The arrangement resulted in tremendous amounts of cigarettes being shoplifted, primarily by youth, all across the country. Her efforts to bring the arrangement to the public's attention culminated in CBS Evening News flying to western Colorado to film an "Eye on America" segment on the issue. The segment, broadcast on April 12, 1999, was taped by advocates across the country and became a highly effective tool used at city council meetings, legislative hearings and press conferences to demonstrate the need to ban self-service tobacco.

As a result of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between 46 state Attorneys General and the American tobacco companies, in November 1998 millions of previously secret tobacco industry documents were posted on the Internet. Anne started examining the documents and has since worked to get them wider media and public exposure. Anne operates the Daily Document List Serve, which sends information on new document discoveries to thousands of tobacco control advocates worldwide. She has published articles about the documents in several medical journals, including Tobacco Control and the American Journal of Public Health. In 2006 Anne completed a research fellowship at the University of California-San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education with Stanton Glantz, Ph.D. She lives in western Colorado with her husband Steve, in an energy-efficient solar home made of over 4,000 used automobile tires and 900 pounds of aluminum cans. Photos of their home, and similar homes, can be seen at Living Earth Construction.

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