In the months immediately after January 1964, when Surgeon General Luther Terry released the first official Government report on smoking and health, cigarette consumption in the United States declined significantly. It was only the second time since the turn of the century that publicity about the hazards of smoking had produced a reduction in cigarette use. At that time, many leaders in the medical and public health arena assumed that, by providing the public with straightforward information about the dangers of smoking, they could discourage large numbers of people from using cigarettes. While the expected change in behavior did occur, it was far more limited than had been hoped-a reflection of the difficulty that individuals often experience when they attempt to alter a complex behavior such as smoking, especially one we now know to be addictive. The recognition that information alone would not eliminate tobacco use shifted the focus to strategies directed to the individual. This focus presumed, erroneously as it turned out, that the major determinants of smoking behavior were centered within the individual rather than sociologic in nature. Subsequent research and natural observation clearly demonstrated that behavior change correlated with changes occurring in the smoker's social and economic environment. This recognition has led to the adoption of public health strategies that now address the smoker's larger social environment while simultaneously offering programs of assistance for the individual. This volume provides a summary of what we have learned over nearly 40 years of the public health effort against smoking-from the early trial-and-error health information campaigns of the 1960'sto the NCI's science-based ASSIST project (the American Stop Smoking Intervention Study for Cancer Prevention), which began in the fall of 1991. Strategies To Control Tobacco Use in the United States: A Blueprint for Public Health Action in the 1990's presents a historical accounting of these efforts as well as the reasons why comprehensive smoking control strategies are now needed to address the smoker's total environment and reduce smoking prevalence significantly over the next decade.