So, I have to make a magazine for my english class. But I have to write about it as though it were in the 1950s. Or my health section I was gong ot write about cigarettes. I know that in 1957 the surgeon general released a report saying that there were some studies indicating that heavy smoking seemed to be linked to ung cancer, what I wondering though is what the public's reaction was? Did people readily believe it or was it motly ignored? I don't know if I should write might my article as a skeptical reporter or as someone who really believes the risks?

I think people had the same attitude they do now about cigarettes.
They will die happy smoking rather than quit.
I do not remember the surgeon general or anybody saying that before the mid 60's
I don't remember cigarettes being seen as a health risk until around the mid 60's.
They had cigarette commercials until around 62, the warning was not on the packs until around 66
If it was 57 nobody cared one way or another.

You may want to search and see how they targeted certain groups, blacks for menthol cigs, long slender ones for women, cigs in cutesy packs, men the rugged camels, pall malls , marlboro, lucky strike. I think for a long time until probably the 80's no one really took the dangers of smoking that seriously.
I think if it were my paper I would write it from a skeptics point of view, since you are writing it based on being in that time span when public awareness had just begun.

A brief history of cigarettes, tobacco and smoking. Interesting

Tobacco Timeline: The Twentieth Century 1950 - 1999--The Battle is Joined Really interesting

Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers - AOL Video Unbelievable!!

Thanks for the answers. I know the surgeon general did offer a statement in '57 because I found a copy of it and also of some of theearly studies that were done. But your response makes me think even more that it was mostly ignored haha

I believe when the cigarette makers started worrying that the general public was really start to listening that is when they came out with the filtered cigarettes and then a company that produced Kent came out with a plastic filter that was supposedly really safe(hospitals used these filters for their breathing machines) kicker is that it turns out that these filters had asbestos in them. So these smokers were getting a double whammy. I wonder how many companies followed them and made cigarettes with plastic filters

I also saw cartoon strips about smokers... they were not really advocating smoking but they definitely were not saying it was harmful either.

Good luck with your paper.

It was definitely ignored until the mid 60's
Have to spread rep bushg but the timeline is excellent AND
It did remind me that the only 'talk' in the 50's in the general public was which filter was better to reduce tar. Like the better filter made the tar acceptable and the only two bad additives ever mentioned were tar and nicotine. Now they are up to over 150 bad additives.
I guess many have been added through the years.

Nohelp I took a smoke stoppers class that lasted for a few weeks and one of the things they taught us, is the makers put sugar in cigs. Now that's something on their part... how many people don't like sugar.

My son took a Dare class and came home scared out of his wits because of the products that are in cigs. I quit 1 -2 months later. Poor kid would come home from school and ask me how many I had smoked that day... How could I not find away to quit beside I had been trying unsuccessfully for a few years. But I think his terror was the breaking point for me.

Yeah I think they have been adding many more additives through the years because it is over 150 now.

Formaldehyde (embalming fluid)
A colourless liquid, highly poisonous, used to preserve dead bodies - also found in cigarette smoke. Known to cause cancer, respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal problems.

Ammonia (toilet cleaner)
Used as a flavouring, frees nicotine from tobacco turning it into a gas, found in dry cleaning fluids.

Acetone (nail polish remover)
Fragrant volatile liquid ketone, used as a solvent, for example, nail polish remover - found in cigarette smoke.

Tar
Particulate matter drawn into lungs when you inhale on a lighted cigarette. Once inhaled, smoke condenses and about 70 per cent of the tar in the smoke is deposited in the smoker's lungs.

Nicotine (insecticide/addictive drug)
One of the most addictive substances known to man, a powerful and fast-acting medical and non-medical poison. This is the chemical which causes addiction.

Carbon Monoxide (CO) (car exhaust fumes)
An odourless, tasteless and poisonous gas, rapidly fatal in large amounts - it's the same gas that comes out of car exhausts and is the main gas in cigarette smoke, formed when the cigarette is lit. Others you may recognize are :

Arsenic (rat poison),

Hydrogen Cyanide (gas chamber poison)

Naphythlamin- A bladder poison,

Cadmium- Used in rechargeable batteries,

Benzo (a) pyrene- A cancer promoter,
Benzene (petrol additive)
A colourless cyclic hydrocarbon obtained from coal and petroleum, used as a solvent in fuel and in chemical manufacture - and contained in cigarette smoke. It is a known carcinogen and is associated with leukaemia.

Ethyl 2-furoate- A liver poison,
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What amazes me is that today we know all of these facts and yet people still make the choice to begin smoking.

I think I'll include something about the filters in my article. That sounds like it will make it more realistic

You say your health section of your magazine

If you have another section that this would work...
Muscle Cars - California Dreaming - Muscle Cars of the 50's
Then there is the teenage lifestyle of the 50's and the
Music.
Really you could write a great book on the 50's!. hmmm!:rolleyes: :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by justcurious55

what amazes me is that today we know all of these facts and yet people still make the choice to begin smoking.

i think i'll include something about the filters in my article. that sounds like it will make it more realistic

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That just goes to show how hard the addiction is to break.
Even though the information is out there not all people read it or hear it about it, at least not indepth. Even doctors do not really address it indepthly with their patients.. I guess they figure that adults should know better. Or at least my doctors did not. I think schools should start the education much earlier than the 5th or 6th grades. I know by the time I was 12 years old I was already addicted.

I hope that you get to read your report out loud or put information on poster boards, that way it will reach some of your fellow classmates ears. Some countries do a terrific job of putting graphic warnings on the packs, they even include pictures that make the buyer really beware. I don't know if including warnings of then versus now would be appropriate for your paper.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by justcurious55

what amazes me is that today we know all of these facts and yet people still make the choice to begin smoking.

i think i'll include something about the filters in my article. that sounds like it will make it more realistic

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Similarly, some people drink and drive, some speed and drive, and some even drink, speed, and drive.

I remember in 1968 my cousins and aunts sitting around our dining room table having a conversation.
My cousins made .60 cents to 1.20 an hour. They said they heard on the news that cigarettes were going up from .50 cents to a whole 1.60 per pack. They all swore that once they hit that price they were going to quit. Now at 5.80 a pack they are still smoking away.

I thought the report came out in early sixties. I was in high school at that time and just about everyone smoked. I remember that some of my friends quit at the time. I tried but was already hooked (I started at about 6 yrs old!). Then I went in the military where the reward for doing what you were supposed to was to be allowed to smoke.
We didn't know anyone with lung cancer. It was something to worry about 20 years in the future when we were old and ready to die anyhow(40 is ancient to a twenty something) plus we were invincible (that attitude is why young people make good military). If you can't quit before, you will probably quit (maybe involuntarily) when you experience symptoms but that's usually too late. I've heard of lung cancer patients smoking through a trachea tube. But you get a prognosis that you will live a few months, the most stressful period of your life and you can't have the crutch you've depended on for the past 20+ years. If we had been really educated on the subject and understood that some day in the future we would slowly suffocate and/or have to have radical heart bypass surgery along with it, maybe it would have sunk in. Not starting is the key but peer pressure is tremendous. A young person should ask themselves if those peers will be there to encourage them when they go for radiation and chemotherapy treatments, a number of years in the future which will come a lot sooner then they can now fathom. The Surgeon General's report from my experience affected maybe 1 out 10 smokers at the time it was issued but its influence on smokers has grown immensely over the past 40+ years, probably because people realize what really killed a close relative or friend. I don't know the stats but I doubt the report has had much impact on young people starting to smoke. But smoking is probably the mildest drug young people are tempted with today. I don't have any answer for that problem, but I know personally that nicotine is the only addiction I have ever had and I will never get over it. I quit in 1979 and I could light one up right now, almost 30 years later.

I wonder if putting these on cigarette packs discourage young smokers. Doesn't seem quite as hip and cool to me. Here in the USA they are not so graphic. They even seem to directly entice our young people or at least they used to with some of the labels. I really don't pay that much attention to the different types since I stopped. Take a look at the disturbing images on these packs.Warnings-1

Yeah, I understand if you're already addicted that its hard to quite. It's just beyond me that there are people my age (18) and younger who still make the choice to begin smoking since we have grown up with the information. I don't think I'll ever get it. But I get that the addiction can be hard to give up. My grandma is currently dying of cancer clearly caused by cigarettes and has trouble breathing, but she swears the cancer isn't from the cigs and that they're really helping her cough...

By the way, those cars are awesome. I think I'll make them into ads for my magazzine!

Thanks for all the responses.

I wonder if they put pictures of a smoker's lung next to the current surgeon general's warning, or maybe on the other panel so that it could be larger, if it would make people think twice... just a thought.