Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I know the intention of the department is to start another campaign or to try to put some new life, I suppose, in this battle against AIDS.
One of the things I should remark on is that when the first indication of the connection between smoking and cancer was made, I believe it was an article in the British medical journal around 1961 or 1962, it was identified as the killer. We had to find ways of stopping people from smoking because it was felt that would reduce the number of fatalities. There were all kinds of different strategies worked out. One of the things that seems to have characterized the first 20 years anyway of the attempt to get people to stop smoking, was the campaign. The campaign, usually, is something which is of short duration, with a tremendous amount of energy and high profile. The problem with campaigns is that they do all those things for that short period of time, but it may temporarily halt people smoking or it may have minor impact. In other words, you can achieve something which is measurable. However, you have used up so much energy and so much of your capital, in a sense, by making this a high profile issue, that it is very difficult then to sustain it. Then you have to wait for a few years to bring it back again and the problem still exists. I think what we have learned from the anti-smoking campaign is that it really has to be a long range strategy. We cannot depend upon the bells and whistles where we go at it for a year and everyone gets excited about it and gives it high profile, because the problem will still exist. Perhaps to a slightly smaller degree, but the problem will still exist. What we have learned from the anti-smoking campaign that began in the mid 1960s was that we have to think through all the kinds of things that we could do. You cannot just say, "Let us come up with a package and go at it for three years," but to stretch it out over a long period of time so you have something sustainable. I am thinking about the demand that manufacturers put warnings on packages of cigarettes, that took a long time because it was planned a long time ago. However, it took quite some time for the manufacturers to do it. Things of that nature, where you have it continually in front of the public as an issue, not banging them in the eye, but it is subliminal almost, are never effective. Eventually you even have children coming home from school and seeing adults smoking and breaking them up in front of their eyes. They may get spanked for it, but at least they have made their point and it has been very effective.
My suggestion would be instead of only looking at a campaign which will last two or three years during the life of this Assembly, we should try to develop a strategy about how this whole thing should be dealt with over a much longer time frame because I believe it would be much more effective than just simply a campaign.