The Rest of the Century
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America's Vice?
By David Haeg
"A custom loathsome to the eye, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." -King James I of England, 1604.
Smoking has been
a subject of controversy and social commentary for 400 years. Today, President
Clinton and other government leaders are making push to curb this habit
once and for all. It may be difficult to convince society even though
400,000 Americans die each year from smoking-related diseases. That's
more than from AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, fires, illegal drugs, murders
and suicides combined. However, this small broad-leafed plant has built
empires and countries,
and was instrumental in the development of the American
economy
.
Laborers to work the fields were scarce in the settlements. Out of a necessity
for this cheap labor grew the slave
culture.
It is as much of a part of our culture and history
as baseball or the automobile.
At first indentured servants, convicts from English prisons, were the main source of labor.
The first recorded instance of slavery was in 1619, when a ship with 20 african-americans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia.
This number grew to 400,000 by the late 1700Ős.
Human nature sometimes divests itself in doing things counterproductive to survival. Smoking is one of these things, and people have had many reasons to take part in this vice.
In the early 1600s, an emerging middle class desired to emulate the habits of the rich and famous. Smoking tobacco was part of this identity, although it was done almost completely by men. It was mainly used in the forms of pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, and snuff.
Originally it was used as a medicinal product to relieve pain and heal infections. The discovery that it was harmful to the human body may have served to increase the popularity, and gave birth to the image which remains to this day-- the socially acceptable but rebellious habit of smoking.
The use of tobacco in pipes, chew, and cigars was firmly entrenched in the American society by 1850. Cigarettes only had modest success, as it was considered a woman's habit. Advertising and marketing changed all of that in the early 1900s.
Richard Reynolds created the Camel cigarette and attracted the attention of a vaguely interested America and brought the cigarette to the forefront of popularity. In 1913, the first year of Camel production, a pack of 20 sold for 10 cents. In 1914, RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. sold 425 million packs.
RJ Reynolds managed to secure the first national commission outfitting American soldiers, distributing packs of cigarettes as battlefield supplies in World War I. In 1919, the first recorded cases of lung cancer began slowly to appear. The number of smokers steadily climbed, as advertising furthered the "cool" image. Chesterfield broke the gender gap with a 1926 ad campaign aimed partially at women.
Everything changed in 1964 when Surgeon General Luther Terry linked lung cancer with cigarette smoking. In 1965, warning labels were placed on packs. Several magazines banned advertising for cigarettes, including Good Housekeeping, Reader's Digest and The New Yorker. In 1967, equal time was required for smoking and anti-smoking messages on TV. During 1971, TV advertising was banned for cigarettes. In 1988, the tobacco industry for the first time had to pay damages to the widow of a cancer victim. And throughout the 1980s and 1990s, restrictions tightened on where and near whom smokers could smoke. In the 1990s, government buildings, including individual offices, became non-smoker facilities. In 1995, smoking was banned in all restaurants in California, with bars following suit by 1998.
What tobacco companies have lost in the United States, they've gained in foreign markets. In the United States 28 percent of the men and 24 percent of the women smoke while in China, 61 percent of the men and 7 percent of the women smoke.What exists today is a very peculiar situation. Smoking has been proven hazardous to your health, smokers are exiled in nearly ever public place, and the government continues to add taxes. Yet, these events have had little impact on the number of cigarette smokers nationwide.
The backlash against government regulations spawned the formation of groups like the National Smokers Alliance and the American Smokers Alliance.