For more than ten years Seattle physician Michael Lippman has taken a stand squarely between tobacco companies and their profits. Lippman isn't a polite write-letters-to-the-editor activist; this outraged man of medicine has been known to get a paint bucket, climb up on billboards advertising cigarettes, and change the wording to tell the awful truth about tobacco. Arrested and charged with defacing private property, Lippman faced up to a year in jail. He was not convicted, but he notes, “They've been building billboards much higher off the ground since then.”

Lippman has moved from climbing and painting to less dramatic political action and education. He’s president of the Washington State chapter of DOC (Doctors Ought to Care), a group of anti-smoking physician/activists. He also coordinates the Washington State chapter of the Center for Tobacco Free Kids and is vice president of Tobacco Free Washington.

In 1990 Lippman learned that Philip Morris was planning a 60 million dollar touring exhibit, ostensibly to teach school kids about the Bill of Rights. Horrified that the tobacco giant was trying to associate its products with this quintessential American document, Lippman and the Washington State chapter of DOC decided to follow the tour like a dark shadow. Wherever the Philip Morris exhibit went, there also went a statue called “Nicotina,” a replica of the Statue of Liberty which was draped in chains and cradling a pack of smokes. On the base of the statue an electronic bulletin board displayed a running tally of the Americans who've died from tobacco-related diseases.