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Originally published by The Boston Globe, July 5, 2003 Wigand Stamping Out Smoking, One Pack at a Time By Jennifer Graham GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
CHARLESTON, S.C. ---- Jeffrey Wigand, not surprisingly, confiscates cigarettes. The famed tobacco whistleblower detects a whiff of smoke on a visiting photographer and holds out his hand. He gets them, a pack of Salems. They are "a donation," destined for the trashcan in Wigand's oceanfront condominium. "What else do you do with something that, when used as directed, kills you?" Wigand says, his crisp Bronx accent intact despite five years in the Deep South. The former tobacco executive depicted in the 1999 movie "The Insider," Wigand savors this small moral victory, which occurs on the heels of a larger defeat. In mid-June, the Charleston City Council, which had appeared ready to enact a ban on public smoking, instead tabled the matter after a contentious public hearing, saying it would defer action until a 25-member panel can study the matter further. It is the second time since Wigand moved here in 1998 that Charleston has tiptoed up to the line and pulled back. Wigand, who came here "to heal" after sudden notoriety and a messy divorce, is apoplectic. "I think the way it was done stunk," he said. "Tell me what a committee of 25 is going to do. Give me a break. I don't know a committee of five that can get anything done. "It was done for political expediency rather than doing the right thing." Longtime Charleston Mayor Joe Riley and half of the 12-member City Council are up for re-election in November. No one expects a vote before then on the ordinance, which would have made Charleston the first city in South Carolina to prohibit smoking in most public places. Tobacco stores and cigar bars would be exempt. It was, Wigand said, "a very reasonable and fair ordinance that would save lives." The Chamber of Commerce disagreed, as did the Greater Charleston Restaurant Association, whose members had, days earlier, read in the local newspaper that smokers are socializing in the streets of New York City instead of ordering more drinks at the bar. Councilman Paul Tinkler, an attorney who co-sponsored the measure, said he believes Charleston will have "some version" of a smoking ban in place within a year. He has, in fact, made a bet with Wigand on the matter, the loser buying dinner for the winner, in a non-smoking restaurant, they hope. Of Wigand, Tinkler says, "He's a very important voice in this discussion." Not everyone agrees. Councilwoman Anne Frances Bleecker, who proposed the 25-member committee, said, "He is so unimportant in the big picture." "Nobody knows who he is. My husband asked who he was, and I said, "Remember that awful movie "The Insider" that I rented?" Bleecker said. "Seems to me like he has a messiah complex," said state Rep. John Graham Altman, who has filed a bill in the General Assembly that would allow the state to withhold money from municipalities that ban smoking in places that sell alcohol. "Charleston generally resents outsiders of any nature, but Charleston also resents insiders who start telling other people how to live," Altman said. Richard Todd, co-host of a morning radio show in Charleston, has known Wigand for four years and is now a golfing buddy. Wigand may be a bit too acerbic for Charleston, frequently voted America's most polite city in one poll or another, but few dispute his opinions, Todd said. "He's right: You smoke, you die. That's pretty simple," Todd said. "He doesn't see anything in gray; he sees everything in black and white. If this thing passes, he will totally be the reason why." Wigand moved here from Louisville and for a while, enjoyed anonymity. These days, however, Wigand is invited to participate in the local Celebrity Chili Cook-off, and he's found obscenities written with markers on his silver truck. But he has no plans to leave.
Wigand, whose tanned face and blue eyes are framed by an abundance of silver hair
and a beard, appears well suited to coastal living. At 61, he's lost weight and looks
younger than he did in the mid-1990s when his deteriorating relationship with his
employer, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., catapulted him into the public eye. His Before joining Brown & Williamson, Wigand was a scientist and executive with firms including Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer. He holds four degrees --- B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Buffalo in New York, and a master's degree in secondary education from the University of Louisville. Strangers call him Dr. Wigand; his friends call him "Wigster." He lives on the third floor of a condominium at Folly Beach, a 20-minute drive from the cobblestone streets of downtown Charleston. Books on philosophy and nicotine are stacked in the living room, and framed articles cover the walls in his office. Wigand lives alone here. Though he is not without female companionship, he bemoans the challenges of dating at 61, and uses an expletive when asked if he will marry again. The answer, in a nutshell, is no. Wigand's second wife remarried months after they divorced and moved to Texas with their two daughters. The girls, now 15 and 17, visit a couple of times a year, as does his 29-year-old daughter from his first marriage.
It is not an uncomfortable life, Wigand acknowledges, though vastly different from
his days at Brown & Williamson, where he smoked two packs a day and made $300,000
a year as director of research. That was before he was fired --- "for poor communication
skills" he has said ---and before he met Lowell Bergman, the 60 Minutes producer Although "60 Minutes" was what most changed his life --- it "put me in a very different setting," Wigand says --- the movie defines it today. "The movie was a gift," he says. In the movie, Wigand is the hero; Big Tobacco, a villain. It was a vindication for Wigand since B&W, with varying degrees of success, tried to paint him as a lying, shoplifting wife-beater in an exhaustive dossier that the Wall Street Journal later concluded was largely unsubstantiated or untrue. The movie was also a vehicle, and it still carries Wigand to schools across the nation, where he touts his non-profit foundation, Smoke-Free Kids, and occasionally confiscates a pack or two of cigarettes from an inspired teen. To make a point about no-smoking areas, Wigand tells kids to imagine swimming pool with a "non-peeing" zone. "It's imagery that's very true, except urine ain't going to kill you. Second-hand smoke will," he said. When he's not bluntly urging children to shun tobacco, Wigand lectures on morality and ethics at colleges across the U.S. Raised a Catholic in New York, Wigand advocates no particular faith, but a universal morality in which doing the right thing --- as in passing legislation to "protect innocents" --- is important and necessary. "It's like Kant, or Mill, or Hume... our satisfaction and attainment of happiness comes from doing the right thing," he says. What's important, Wigand says, is "what you do with what you know."
"I have a unique knowledge set, and with that knowledge comes duty," he said. "I
know I've lived my life with integrity. I think history will treat me right." |