The Habit Buries the Opposition
LIKE a reluctant smoker who will not quit, the cigarette market has at times cut down on its consumption for fear that smoking might be harmful and addictive, only to return more committed than ever. What mechanisms suppress such fears? Advertising and war! These have been “the two most important methods of spreading cigarette use,” according to historian Robert Sobel.
Cigarette use shot upward with the rise of ‘nation against nation’ in the first world war. (Matthew 24:7) What caused American production to go from 18 billion cigarettes in 1914 to 47 billion by 1918? A crusade for free cigarettes for soldiers! The narcotic effect was deemed helpful to combat loneliness at the front.
“Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag/While you’ve a lucifer [match] to light your fag [cigarette],” urged the British wartime song. As government agencies and patriotic private groups provided free smokes for fighting men, not even anticigarette protesters dared criticize.
Tightening the Grip
Newly converted smokers became good customers after the war. In 1925 alone, Americans consumed an average of nearly 700 cigarettes per person. Postwar Greece consumed half again as many per capita as the United States. American cigarettes became popular in many countries, but others like India, China, Japan, Italy, and Poland depended on homegrown tobacco to meet their domestic demand.
To increase their grip on the American market, advertisers aimed at the ladies. “Tobacco advertising in the late 1920’s was characterized as ‘gone mad,’” reports Jerome E. Brooks. But advertising kept Americans buying cigarettes during and after the economic depression of 1929. Huge budgets (about $75,000,000 in 1931) promoted the cigarette as an aid to remaining slim, an alternative to candy. Movies glorifying cigarette-smoking stars, such as Marlene Dietrich, helped create a sophisticated image. Thus in 1939, on the eve of a new world war, American women joined men in consuming 180 billion cigarettes.
Another war! Soldiers again got free cigarettes, even in their field rations. “Lucky Strike Green Has Gone to War!” ran a well-promoted ad, capitalizing on the patriotic wartime mood. With cigarette consumption in the United States estimated at 400 billion yearly by the end of World War II, who could question the place of tobacco in the world?
Indeed, who could question the importance of cigarettes to postwar Europe, where at one point cartons of cigarettes replaced currency in the black market? American soldiers stationed in Europe bought subsidized cigarettes for as little as five cents a pack and with them paid for everything—from new shoes to girlfriends. Tax-free military sales of cigarettes shot up from 5,400 per capita in 1945 to 21,250 in just two years.
For decades any objectionable aspects of tobacco use were successfully kept out of the public limelight—not refuted but simply overshadowed by the relentless growth of a popular habit. Privately, however, questions remained: Is smoking harmful? Is it clean or is it contaminating?
In 1952 the smoldering question of health suddenly surfaced. British doctors published a new study showing that cancer victims tended to be heavy smokers. The Reader’s Digest picked up the story, and wide publicity followed. By 1953 an anticigarette campaign seemed headed for success. Would the world kick the habit?
The Formidable Cigarette Industry
Publicly, the cigarette industry insisted that the case against cigarettes was unproved, merely statistical. But suddenly—and ironically—it revealed its secret weapon, the low-tar cigarette. The new product furnished an image of safety and health to frightened smokers who didn’t want to quit, while advertising again proved its ability to sell an image.
Actually, the low-tar brands were more soothing to the conscience of the smoker than to his health. Scientists were later to find that many smokers compensated by inhaling more deeply and by holding the smoke in the lungs longer until they got as much nicotine as ever. But another quarter century would pass before researchers could demonstrate this. Meanwhile, cigarettes emerged as one of the world’s most profitable industries, now chalking up annual sales worth over $40 billion (U.S.).
Economically the industry today is stronger than ever. Customers keep buying. Yearly consumption is rising by 1 percent annually in the industrialized countries and by over 3 percent in the developing countries of the Third World. In Pakistan and Brazil, the growth is respectively six and eight times faster than in most Western countries. One fifth of Thailand’s individual income is used to buy cigarettes.
Still, for many thoughtful individuals the tight grip of the world’s 100-year cigarette love affair is by no means the end of the story. Could there be more than meets the eye in this phenomenal increase in tobacco use, especially since 1914, and its almost blind acceptance by so many? What about those questions seldom addressed, such as the ethics of the habit? Is smoking morally neutral or is it blameworthy? Our next article presents some insight.
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Advertising and war—the two most important methods of spreading cigarette use