Ahron Leichtman (February 21, 1943 – October 12, 2018) was a national and regional leader in the quest to ban public smoking in the United States. He graduated in 1964 from the University of Cincinnati, with a Bachelor of Arts in political science, and earned a creative writing certificate from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1971.
During the 1980s and 1990s he founded multiple organizations to carry out anti-smoking initiatives. He established and led Citizens Against Tobacco Smoke (CATS), which was later renamed Citizens for a Tobacco-Free Society (CATS). Leichtman organized a coalition of over 90 nonsmoker’s rights, anti-smoking and environmental health groups to provide tireless grassroots support for the national campaign to ban airline smoking.
He created the Smoke-free Skies Campaign that led to the ban of smoking on all U.S. airline flights. Leichtman developed promotional materials to encourage the news media to cover the health, safety, legal and economic issues involved with airline smoking. He participated in numerous television network, nationally syndicated and radio interview programs about airline smoking, serving as the primary advocate for a total smoking ban on commercial airline flights.
Leichtman presented oral testimony before five U.S. Congressional Subcommittees on various topics related to smoking, health and the tobacco industry, leading to a national airline smoking ban on February 25, 1990.
Leichtman’s war on public smoking covered the full scope of health and social ramifications, including: nonsmokers’ rights; smoking’s effects upon both smokers and nonsmokers; clean indoor air legislation; the detrimental economics of smoking; politicians and the tobacco industry; tobacco industry liability lawsuits; cigarette-caused fires; the tobacco economy; the impact of cigarette advertising on children and specific demographic groups; the economic impact of airline smoking; airline cabin air quality; smoking in hospitals and health care facilities; workplace smoking consequences for both employees and employers; and public opinion about smoking.
Leichtman founded Smoke-free Travel Services. He specialized in promoting nonsmoking restaurants, hotels and transportation. The organization planned smoke-free meetings and conventions in the U.S., Canada and Australia.
Leichtman established Amberley Associates, a consultancy specializing in public and media relations. He organized media campaigns with particular emphasis on smoking and health, the airline and travel industries. He originated Amberley Productions, an independent film production company.
Leichtman created and co-produced THE SKY’S NO LIMIT, a two-hour movie for television about female astronauts starring Sharon Gless, Dee Wallace and Anne Archer. The movie aired on CBS-TV, February 7, 1984. Leichtman was a member of the Writer’s Guild of America-West, specializing in writing talk shows, syndicated specials and motion pictures.
The Ahron Leichtman Papers demonstrate how he was especially outraged about the ways tobacco companies utilized racist and gender-based advertising methods to recruit and retain smokers, and their concerted targeting of children and teenagers in advertising campaigns. His research provides extensive documentation of the anti-smoking campaigns in the state of California and the city of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Leichtman’s archives comprises 84 boxes segmented into eight groups of correspondence, research, work activities, cigarette and tobacco advertisements, literary scripts, family history and media collection of his anti-public smoking advocacy in the 20th-21st centuries (1943-2018). The scripts and Leichtman family history are restricted until 2094. The Leichtman media collection is currently undergoing digitization. Paper is the primary format of the materials. The collection is accessible to researchers at the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions in the University of Cincinnati Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library.
(Ahron Leichtman’s state of Ohio automobile license plate)