ASH Announces New Executive Director – Laurent Huber

Dec. 30, 2010 - PRLog -- The founder and Board of Trustees of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), an antismoking and nonsmokers’ rights organization, are proud to announce that Laurent Huber, 45, who has served as ASH’s International Director for more than ten years, will become its new (and second) Executive Director on January 1, 2011.

ASH’s founder, law professor John Banzhaf, 70, after an impressive career in public interest law, will step down as Executive Director, a role he has held for more than forty-two years.

As International Director, Huber utilized extraordinary leadership skills and abilities to play a vital role in shaping the World Health Organization [WHO]  Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [FCTC], the world’s first antismoking and nonsmokers’ rights treaty.

Laurent Huber fosters cooperation from all parts of the world while building tobacco-control capacity to curb the tobacco epidemic around the globe.

A U.S. citizen, he is nevertheless seen as a “citizen of the world” who, thanks to his tobacco control expertise and fluency in four languages, has been a very effective antismoking diplomat.

For his efforts in international tobacco control, Huber received two awards associated with former US Surgeon Generals, the American Lung Association’s C. Everett Koop Foundation Unsung Hero Award in 2005 and under his leadership, an international coalition of tobacco control organizations received the Luther Terry award in 2006.

His accomplishments in helping the development of the FCTC can be seen in the ever-growing number of countries that have banned smoking in most public places and workplaces. It is also evidenced in the widespread requirement that cigarette packs display graphic pictorial warnings about the dangers of smoking.

Under Huber’s new leadership, ASH plans to continue both its international and domestic antismoking actions, both of which have proven to be so successful in curbing smoking and saving lives.

Professor Banzhaf will serve in the function of Special Counsel to ASH in which role he will support ASH with the legal and  law-related actions for which ASH is so well known.

ASH drove cigarette commercials from the airwaves, started the modern trend towards banning smoking in public places, helped preserve nonsmoker health insurance discounts, and played a role in killing off cigarette billboards and advertising targeting children such as “Joe Camel.”

Velma Dessuit, Development Director
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
701 4th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001, USA
(202) 659-4310 // (703) 966-6973
Internet: http://ash.org/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/AshOrg

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Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), America's first anti-smoking and nonsmokers' rights organization, serves as the legal action arm of the anti-smoking community. It is supported by tax-deductible contributions.