FADS,FACTS,AND FRAUDS ABOUT CIGARETS
Harding, T. Swann
Fads, Facts, And Frauds About Cigarets By T. SWANN HARDING HOWEVER disreputable it finally became, tobacco started out very respectable—in possession of marked "curative" properties. Nicot, whose...
...However, until basic research is completed, we can only say that smoking is not particularly harmful .and is extremely unlikely to be beneficial, advertisers notwithstanding...
...21, 1942, impolitely expressed doubt...
...5,1943, the aforesaid Commission asked: Did you mention in your advertising that the differences in nicotine content in and among all the brands were negligible...
...Smoking also is an addiction, though not a true drug addiction for, if it were, smokers would always be seeking tobacco in ever stronger dosages, which they do not do...
...The pleasure of smoking is mechanical like sucking candy or talking when one has nothing to say...
...Since very few girl babies smoke, you see what the older children and the adults have to do to keep pace...
...Except for the lack of ballyhoo, they will be found to differ very little from brands of more widely heralded renown...
...When it comes to cigarets we are no longer considering just tobacco...
...If they could get a quart of this milk at a feeding it might poison them, but they don't, so that doesn't have to be worried about...
...After all that advertising tosh about the beneficial character of smoking such candor is seductive indeed...
...Then the makers of Pall Mall cigarets announced their finding that finger stains caused by cigaret smoking disappeared when Pall Malls were used, but the Federal Trade Commission, Aug...
...Ten days later the Commission took a whirl af'Vhe makers of Lucky Strikes...
...Later" the prior of Lorena, who received a tobacco plant from Nicot, gave some to Catherine de Medici, whose hobby was medicinal herbs...
...8, 1941...
...For our consumption of cigarets is something stupendous...
...Smoking does irritate the throat...
...But, on Mar...
...Yet blindfold the consumer and he can't tell one eigaret from another, unless there is menthol in it...
...Nicot, whose name got attached to nicotine, used tobacco leaves to heal his cook's cut finger...
...But smoke they do...
...THE fact that Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin were heavy smokers while Hitler and Mussolini abstained has given the moralists a hard time of it lately...
...The way of public benefactors and finders of new cures is littered with stones heaved by the Federal Trade Commission...
...Enemata of tobacco smoke were administered with a special bellows and the plant was also used as an adjunct to mercury in sweating baths for the cure of loathesome diseases men came upon by their naughtiness...
...Though it was itself an ingredient of the poison, tobacco came to be esteemed as an antidote for poison arrows...
...This holds even for cancer...
...But think what it meant—something like 70 packages of cigarets every 10 months for every man, woman, and child in the land...
...It is quite possible to absorb poisonous doses of nicotine by smoking with diligence and fortitude, but bodily tolerance thereto develops rapidly...
...In other words each member of the armed forces got about 36 packages a month, or more than one a day...
...This experiment proves that brand favorites are illusions and smokers are dreamers...
...We think there's a large enough market of intelligent people who smoke only for the simple pleasure of smoking...
...First, of course, the Philip Morris & Co...
...Then the makers appeared to discover that "Philip Morris cigarets had strange curative properties...
...It said scientific evidence was lacking to prove that Pall Malls caused fewer finger stains, protected tender throats, filtered the harsh irritants out of tobacco smoke, or—despite profuse heraldic devices— were London products...
...They wouldn't shorten your wind nor irritate your tender throat...
...Since women find the weed even more compelling than do men, they cannot even stop using it when pregnant or nursing infants...
...In general different cigaret manufacturers keep secret the precise blend of flavor they use, for it is this blend, rather than any fine-quality tobacco, which attracts the consumer...
...It flatly asserted that these cigarets were not toasted, did not have inside place among tobacco smokers, were not less acid than other brands by any given percentage, or any at all, were not less irritating to throats than non-toasted brands, did not offer throat protection, did not contain better or higher-priced tobacco than competing brands, would not prevent cough, and were not made from finer tobacco or from the cream of the tobacco crop...
...and "London W" in its address...
...discovered that it purveyed cigarets to British royalty and began to put "By special appointment" on its packages...
...of Louisville published an advertisement reading thus: NOT OFFERED AS A REMEDY for frayed nerves, indigestion, or acidosis...
...In those days Eton scholars were viciously flogged if they failed to smoke in classrooms, as well as before and after...
...THAT was an all-time peak and consumption began to level off in 1944...
...For a cigaret is not only a blend of various tobaccos but also of numerous flavoring substances and other commodities, just for instance: Tonka-bean vanilla, licorice, chocolate, maple sugar, rum, alcohol, fruit flavors, essential oils, glycerine, ttugar, resin, and volatile oils...
...Or, if you prefer co-op cigarets, this material from the package label of a cooperative brand is just as refreshing and heartening: Co-op cigarettes are made of quality domestic tobacco blended to give a mild gratifying smoke...
...NOT to be outdone the Reynolds Tobacco Co...
...The Federal Trade Commission ordered it to quit that sort of deception way back on Jan...
...Smoking or the use of infusions of tobacco wiped out asthma in no time...
...declared that smoking Camels aided digestion, fortified good health, and was found by laboratory research to restore bodily energy...
...Then, in early 1944, 53,100,000,000 cigarets went to our armed forces...
...In 1943 we consumed 257,700,000,000 cigarets...
...A few years ago only about 120,000,000,000 cigarets were consumed in this country annually, but the figure for 1939 was 172,-200,000,000, and that was prewar...
...Moralists use metaphysics to put the curse on tobacco while advertisers invent myths to bolster its beneficial qualities...
...IN due time, of course, moralists took hold of the tobacco problem and the medical profession obediently found that smoking the weed caused almost every disease known to humankind...
...Whereas Old Golds had discovered not a cough in a carload, Philip Morris quietly explained that a survey of eminent medical authorities (for which the company paid) indicated that its cigarets were somehow good for the throat...
...But Old Golds went at the matter more scientifically and published tests of seven leading brands which seemed to prove that Old Golds were lowest of all in nicotine content and in throat-irritating tars and resins...
...It made lavish use of the word "English" and affected English expressions like "Ltd...
...Medical men, speaking as physicians, rarely speak favorably of tobacco, though they often justify its use, while denying tobacco to the patient at least gives the doctor an obvious function in promoting therapy...
...But no actual scientific evaluation of the effects of smoking has yet been made...
...You see how it goes...
...In August, 1942, the Federal Trade Commission questioned its claims that smoking these cigarets would cause no nose and throat irritation and that, in fact, they could be used freely without payment of "smoking penalties...
...You could smoke as many Camels as you wished and still retain top athletic form...
...The Federal Trade Commission growled false, inaccurate, misleading...
...But most serious ailments once attributed to use of the weed are known now not to be caused by its use...
...Once war begins people have to smoke so many cigarets you wonder how they find time to fight the enemy or make munitions...
...We offer these people a fine cigaret of better-than-usual tobaccos, made more enjoyable by a touch of menthol that does nothing but produce a pleasing sensation of coolness...
...The nicotinized milk is just as plentiful as if the mother did not smoke and it apparently tastes quite as good to the little rascals as nicotine-free milk...
...That could cause coughing and that could cause hernia...
...It declared that many Camel testimonials were signed by non-Camel smokers and even by non-smokers...
...They burned 25 per cent more slowly and contained 28 per cent less nicotine—than what...
...Cigarets are withdrawn from the warehouses as the internal revenue tax is paid, and it runs to much more than the value of the cigarets...
...Ferdinand of Aragon instituted pharmacological tests of tobacco to save the lives of explorers he sent to the wilds of America...
...the very juice would save a dog wounded by a poison arrow...
...It appears to be a fact too that, when cigaret smoke is deeply inhaled, 90 per cent of the nicotine therein is retained in the respiratory tract and 77 percent lodges there even if the smoke is merely held in Sie mouth and then expelled...
...Nicotine is duly secreted in their milk and the children consume it but are apparently unaffected...
...Affording the same degree of enjoyment to those who relish smoking a good cigarette, they contain, as well, about the same amount of nicotine and other ingredients generally supposed to be injurious to health...
...We sell cigarets —not medicine...
...It said that Prince Albert smoking tobacco did not burn 86 degrees cooler...
...That was about half what our entire domestic consumption had been a few short years ago...
...Till found to be a toxic substance, tobacco was regarded as both a stimulant and a sedative...
...It snarled at the Brown A Williamson Tobacco Corporation that it must quit advertising Kools to clear the head, soothe the throat, and guard against colds...
...Did you state that the differences in tar content were insignificant...
...Applied as a poultice, it relieved indigestion...
...During the plague of 1665 finely powdered tobacco was used to disinfect...
...It accused Reynolds of using faked voices of faked users over the radio...
...Fortunately, however, the manufacturers have in recent years re-discovered in tobacco the "healing and medicinal" properties it had in the beginning...
...Snuff was soon being manufactured in France and it removed "humours" and cured headaches...
...The thesis that smoking tobacco is harmful cannot be proved, but statistics do indicate that it may shorten life, especially if heavily indulged during middle age...
...One heretic did advertise his product as neither a cure nor a medicine, but most of them stood by tobacco's therapeutic virtues...
...That left Luckies just about bereft of any claim at all...
...Yet back in 1936 the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 52
