Patrick Reynolds' Bio

He founded Tobaccofree Earth in 1989. Its mission is to motivate youth to stay tobacco-free and to empower smokers to quit successfully. Thanks to major grants from Google and donors, the NGO delivers content to people in over 80 countries. In 2009 Reynolds met with Greece’s Minister of Health and gave talks there; his visit received national news coverage. He has also spoken in France, the Canary Islands, Dubai, and Monaco, and hopes to tour in Asia and the Middle East, where smoking rates are high. 

In 2004, he founded Be An Elf, a Christmas charity that creates public awareness of the USPS Operation Santa® program and has recruited thousands of new volunteers for it. Through the USPS® program, the public may adopt real letters to Santa from needy children online, and send families their gifts directly, with no charity involved. 

Over the years, as Reynolds campaigned for smoking bans, State and Federal tobacco tax hikes, and other new policies, it became clear to him that Democrats were far more willing to support the health community’s initiatives. These also included raising the purchase age to 21, FDA regulation of tobacco, and banning candy-flavors from tobacco and vape products.

While almost all of his colleagues remained largely silent about this, Reynolds pointed out in his university lectures and cable news interviews that Republicans received up to 80% of Big Tobacco’s political donations, peaking in the early 1990’s, and that most were voting the way Big Tobacco wanted them to. He grew increasingly frustrated.

Reynolds saw that having Democrats in the majority in Congress would bring progress not only on tobacco policy, but also on climate change, gun control, abortion, immigration reform, and other issues.

In 2018 Reynolds started Congress Majority PAC with a mission of getting Democrats elected to Congress. Prior to the 2024 election, Reynolds wrote, produced and narrated 3 TV spots which mentioned no Democratic candidate by name, but sent the message, Vote Democrat. “Our ads pioneer a new direction in political advertising for Democrats,” he said. “Each ad focuses on one issue: our ad on the economy compares the Administrations of Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden, and our ads on immigration and climate change compare the Parties’ voting records on those issues. All conclude, Vote Democrat, and mention no candidate by name, so our ads can be run in any State.”

Reynolds was convinced his PAC’s ads would help Democrats win, but he met with the major Democratic PACs and donors too late in the election cycle, and failed to raise significant funding.

Following the Presidential election of 2024, he issued a press release that was picked up by AP, Yahoo Finance, and other news outlets. In it, Reynolds said he planned to build Congress Majority PAC’s war chest for the 2026 mid-term election. 

Before his move to politics, in 2019 the San Francisco Chronicle published an editorial Reynolds wrote against vaping products. It congratulated San Francisco voters for approving the first citywide ban of the sale of all vaping and flavored tobacco products, except menthol and tobacco. Later that year New York City passed a similar ban.

Reynolds was a strong advocate for the Federal tobacco tax hike of 62 cents, signed into law by Obama in 2009 on his 17th day in office, after being tabled by George W. Bush every year for eight years. Reynolds’ USA Today editorial makes a compelling case for higher tobacco taxes.

Reynolds was also a proponent of the Congressional bill for FDA regulation of tobacco. In March, 2009, he met in Washington DC with Rep. Henry Waxman, co-sponsor of the bill, to offer his support. Later that year the bill was passed by Congress and signed by President Obama.

In April 2009, Mr. Reynolds was invited to Greece by Health Minister Avramopoulos to help build public acceptance of Greece’s new no-smoking law. There was strong national Greek news coverage of his visit, and Reynolds successfully focused the public’s attention on the health hazards of smoking and second-hand smoke. Greece’s Ministry of Health shared this letter to Ministers of Health around the world, praising his talks there and the “very positive national media coverage of his visit.” 

Reynolds’ critically acclaimed educational video for grades 6 – 12, The Truth About Tobacco, was purchased by 12,000 schools and health departments. The video shows an impassioned live talk Patrick gave to 1,000 9th graders in 2,000. 

In both his live talks for middle and high schools and in his educational video, Reynolds delivers his strong feelings about his father’s death from smoking, the addictiveness of nicotine, cigarette advertising, and smoking by stars in movies. He also tells the tragic, powerful story of Sean Marsee, a high school track star who died at 19 from chewing tobacco, and shows before and after pictures, with his formerly handsome face disfigured by mouth cancer at age 20.

His video and live talks include Reynolds’ unique initiation into life for teens. He concludes his talks with his inspiring message of hope for the future and his vision of the coming tobaccofree society. “My goal is to reassure teens in a time of new diseases, economic uncertainty, wars, and terrorism. I share my faith in the future with them, and urge them to hold on to their health “for the amazing years ahead, and not throw their lives away on drugs, tobacco, or alcohol.” 

For additional video clips of Mr. Reynolds’ live talks, click here, and for a sampling of his TV news interviews, click here. His video The Truth About Tobacco for age 11 – 18 received acclaim from educators, and his live talks have won much praise.

Since first speaking out publicly in 1986, Patrick Reynolds has spoken before numerous municipal and State legislatures in support of proposed smoking bans. He also campaigned for State and Federal cigarette tax increases, and laws to limit youth access to cigarettes. He approached several members of the US Congress about the aggressive advertising of US brands in the Third World and Asia.

In 1987 Mr. Reynolds testified a second time in Congress, joining the many voices who helped bring about the ban of smoking on planes. The UN’s World Health Organization honored him with a special award in 1988, and in 1989, Chicago’s Mt. Sinai Hospital awarded him its Humanitarian of the Year award.

Mr. Reynolds coauthored a family biography with author Tom Shachtman, The Gilded Leaf: Three Generations of the RJ Reynolds Family and Fortune. The book was published by Little Brown to critical acclaim and is currently in print through iUniverse.com. Photos, reviews, a press release and a link to order the book may be found at tobaccofree.org/book/. The Gilded Leaf may become a series for television in future.

In college, Reynolds studied English at UC Berkeley and then cinema at UCLA and USC. In 1969 he filmed a documentary titled ‘Berkeley’ which was shown at the 1970 Cannes film festival. Director Robert Altman invited Patrick to appear in his film Nashville in 1975, and following that, Reynolds studied acting with Lee Strasburg and other respected acting coaches. His film resume on IMDB includes several feature films and TV shows, including a starring role in the feature film Eliminators, released in 1,200 theatres in 1986.

In 2007 Patrick married Alexandra Olympios, and they have a son, born in 2009.