Described as the "Ralph Nader of the anti-tobacco movement,"[2][3] Glantz is an activist for nonsmokers' rights and an advocate of public health policies to reduce smoking.
[14] Known for being blunt and abrasive, Glantz embraces his public image and controversial positions on smoking, on occasion wearing a "Here Comes Trouble" T-shirt.
[16] One such study demonstrated a large and rapid reduction in the number of people admitted to the hospital with heart attacks in Helena, Montana,[17] after that community made all workplaces and public places smokefree.
Glantz is author or coauthor of numerous publications related to secondhand smoke and tobacco control, as well as many papers on cardiovascular function and biostatistics.
In total, he is the author of 4 books and over 400 scientific papers, including the first major review (published in Circulation) which identified secondhand smoke as a cause of heart disease and the landmark 1995 Journal of the American Medical Association summary of the Brown & Williamson documents, which showed that the tobacco industry knew nicotine was addictive and that smoking caused cancer 30 years ago.
"[23] Thomas J. Glynn, a researcher at the American Cancer Society, responded that "The data in this study do not allow many of the broad conclusions that it draws"[24] In 2018, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine reviewed all the available evidence on e-cigarettes and youth and concluded that “there is substantial evidence that e-cigarette use increases risk of ever using combustible cigarettes among youth and young adults.
In 1983, he helped successfully defend the San Francisco Workplace Smoking Ordinance against a tobacco industry-supported attempt to repeal it by referendum.
[29] The San Francisco victory represented the first electoral defeat of such a tobacco industry sponsored referendum, and is now viewed as a major turning point in the battle for nonsmokers' rights.
In 1982 he was part of a group of health activists who resurrected the last remaining copy of the film Death in the West, previously suppressed by Philip Morris,[30][31] and developed an accompanying mini-course for fifth to tenth graders that has been used by over one million students.
[13] He also wrote Tobacco: Biology and Politics[33] for high school students and The Uninvited Guest, a story about secondhand smoke, for second graders.
In May, 1994, Glantz received at his UCSF office two boxes containing 4,000 documents leaked from Brown & Williamson, the third largest US cigarette manufacturer at the time.
The material provided the first definitive proof that the tobacco industry had known for 30 years that nicotine was addictive and caused cancer, and had hidden that knowledge from the public.
Many of the provisions of the "global settlement"—but not the immunity or FDA provisions—were implemented by the (MSA) between the attorneys general of 46 states and the large tobacco companies.
In particular, the immunity provisions in the global settlement would have prevented the massive (and successful) federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit that the US Department of Justice won against the tobacco industry in 2007.