Smoking Out
It’s somewhat appropriate that my birthday coincides with “The Great American Smoke-Out” since I have always hated smoking. There are a variety of reasons to quit listed on the Smoke-Out’s “Why Quit?” page…
- Ex-smokers also enjoy a higher quality of life with fewer illnesses from cold and flu viruses, better self-reported health status, and reduced rates of bronchitis and pneumonia.
. . .
The prospect of better health is a major reason for quitting, but there are others as well. Smoking is expensive. The economic costs of smoking are estimated to be about $3,391 per smoker per year. Do you really want to continue burning up your money with nothing to show for it except possible health problems?
. . .
Smoking not only harms your health but the health of those around you. Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (also called ETS, passive smoking or second hand smoke) includes exhaled smoke as well as smoke from burning cigarettes. Studies have shown that environmental tobacco smoke can cause lung cancer in healthy nonsmokers. It is also associated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and low-birth weight infants. Smoking by mothers is linked to a higher risk of their babies developing asthma in childhood, especially if the mother smokes while pregnant. Babies and children raised in a household where there is smoking have more ear infections, colds, bronchitis, and other respiratory problems than children from nonsmoking families. Environmental smoke can also cause eye irritation, headaches, nausea, and dizziness.
…but oddly enough, they fail to list the biggest reason I can think of why people shouldn’t smoke : Tobacco companies are evil.
And I don’t use the word “evil” lightly, either. Not in that sense that many people on the left throw the word around when descibing any megacorporation that screws people over to increase their profits. I mean evil in the sense that tobacco companies are murderers who are every bit as deserving of capital punishment as anyone on death row.
Although this isn’t really new information, this excerpt from a Justice Department report on tobacco companies shows that tobacco companies have a lot more in common with the mob than most legitimate businesses :
- At the end of 1953, the chief executives of the five major cigarette manufacturers in the United States at the time ? Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, and American ? met at the Plaza Hotel in New York City with representatives of the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton and agreed to jointly conduct a long term public relations campaign to counter the growing evidence linking smoking as a cause of serious diseases. The meeting spawned an association-in-fact enterprise to execute a fraudulent scheme in furtherance of their overriding common objective ? to preserve and enhance the tobacco industry?s profits by maximizing the numbers of smokers and number of cigarettes smoked and to avoid adverse liability judgments. The fraudulent scheme would continue for the next five decades.
As a result of the Plaza Hotel meetings, the companies launched their long term public relations campaign by issuing the ?Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers,? a full page announcement published in 448 newspapers across the United States. The Frank Statement included two representations that would lie at the heart of Defendants’ fraudulent scheme ? first, that there was insufficient scientific and medical evidence that smoking was a cause of disease; and second, that the industry would jointly sponsor and disclose the results of ?independent? research designed to uncover the health effects of smoking through the new industry-funded Tobacco Industry Research Committee (?TIRC?), later renamed the Council for Tobacco Research (?CTR?). At the same time that Defendants announced in their 1954 “Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers” that “we accept an interest in people?s health as a basic responsibility, paramount to every other consideration in our business,” it established a sophisticated public relations apparatus in the form of TIRC ? based on the “cover” of conducting research ? to deny the harms of smoking and to reassure the public. Once the essential strategy of generating controversy surrounding the scientific findings linking smoking to disease was organized and implemented in 1953-54, the industry’s approach was unwavering for five decades.
. . .
The public statements issued through organizations like TIRC/CTR, the Tobacco Institute, CIAR, and by Cigarette Company Defendants themselves, were flatly inconsistent with Defendants’ actual knowledge about the link between smoking and disease. At the same time that Defendants assured the public through their ?Frank Statement? that ?there is no proof that cigarette smoking is one of the causes [of cancer],? internally they documented a large number of known carcinogens in their products and replicated mainstream scientific research showing the health effects of smoking. Defendants? internal documents acknowledge that their public denial that smoking cigarettes causes disease both was contrary to the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus ? established through extensive epidemiological and other scientific investigation by the early 1950s ? and was intended to convince smokers and potential smokers that there remained genuine scientific ?controversy? about whether smoking caused disease.
. . .
Just as Defendants long denied, contrary to fact, that smoking does not cause disease, Defendants also made numerous false and misleading statements denying that smoking is addictive over the past several decades. Indeed, no later than 1988, there was an overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking was a drug-driven behavior of dependence, and that nicotine was the drug delivered in cigarette smoke responsible for creating and sustaining addiction. Relying on long discarded and discredited definitions of addiction, Defendants publicly attacked the scientific and medical evidence of addiction when, in fact, overwhelming documentary evidence demonstrates that Defendants openly recognized, from at least the early 1960s, that nicotine was responsible for the pharmacological effects that keep people smoking. Indeed, researchers for Cigarette Company Defendants saw themselves as being in the ?nicotine business? and conceived a pack of cigarettes as a ?day?s supply of nicotine.? As with Defendants? statements designed to undermine the scientific evidence of smoking?s harms, the statements denying addiction were knowingly false and misleading when made, and intended to avoid product regulation, to bolster the industry?s defenses in smoking and health litigation, and to avoid increasing consumers’ concerns about smoking.Defendants? awareness of the critical importance of nicotine to the cigarette smoker, and thus to the continued profits of the industry, were such that the Defendants dedicated extraordinary resources studying nicotine and its effects on the smoker. The evidence shows that Defendants have long had the ability to modify and manipulate the amount of nicotine that their products could deliver (including removing all nicotine), and have studied extensively how every characteristic of every component of cigarettes ? including the tobacco blend, the paper, the filter, and the manufacturing process ? impacts nicotine delivery. Indeed, Cigarette Company Defendants’ internal documents indicate that, in light of Cigarette Company Defendants? recognition that ?no one has ever become a cigarette smoker by smoking cigarettes without nicotine,? Cigarette Company Defendants have designed their cigarettes with a central overriding objective ? to ensure that the smoker could obtain enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction. Accordingly, Defendants? numerous public statements that they do not and have not manipulated the delivery of nicotine to the smoker are false.
. . .
Defendants’ fraudulent scheme also has influenced how the Cigarette Company Defendants have designed their cigarettes. From the early 1960s, Defendants’ cigarette design and research efforts were predicated on the understanding that the introduction of a cigarette that was actually less hazardous to its users would constitute an admission that all other cigarettes brands were more harmful. Accordingly, Defendants delayed and avoided development of potentially safer products, chose not to incorporate design features that they believed were likely to reduce the delivery of harmful constituents in cigarette smoke, and failed to meaningfully test their cigarettes, including “low tar/low nicotine” brands, that they developed or actually sold in order to assess whether different design modifications actually reduced the harms caused by smoking. As a result, Defendants have collectively, in the past five decades, introduced and sold a paltry number of innovative products for which the companies failed, prior to their introduction, to pursue the evidence necessary to ascertain whether they present any actual likely harm reduction to humans.Efforts to stifle innovation and enforce the understanding that less hazardous products should not be developed were aggressive. In one instance, after Defendant Liggett spent twelve years and $15 million developing a cigarette ? the XA ? that its research showed to be significantly less carcinogenic than its conventional cigarettes, it killed the entire project before marketing the cigarette to consumers after Defendant Brown & Williamson threatened Liggett’s “very existence” if it marketed the cigarette. Brown & Williamson also threatened to freeze Liggett out of joint defense agreements and exclude Liggett from the Tobacco Institute. Delivered through Brown & Williamson’s representative on the Tobacco Institute’s Committee of Counsel, the threat was based on Brown & Williamson’s fear that selling XA would be an admission against the interest of all Cigarette Company Defendants.
But I think the ultimate responisbility goes to our dickless government officials that pander to tobacco growers and accept millions of dollars in bribes from the cigarette companies. The very fact that tobacco is “regulated” by a “Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms” is proof enough that they have no real interest in dealing with this problem. At the very least, tobacco should be regulated by the FDA. Of course, they might have a problem with that whole deliberately addictive product that causes cancer thing.
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“And I don’t use the word “evil” lightly, either. Not in that sense that many people on the left throw the word around when descibing any megacorporation that screws people over to increase their ”
and i don’t use the word “evil” lightly when i say that the meat industry and fast food industry are just as evil (if not moreso) in the exact same ways as the tobacco industry. the only difference being that the meat industry didn’t necessarily start out evil (suppressing information about killing people), like tobacco companies, it just evolved into evil.
Comment by tom — November 21, 2003 @ 11:24 am
They need to change that name because when they say “Smoke-Out,” I think “Cypress Hill.”
Comment by Kyle — November 21, 2003 @ 12:37 pm
and Bush who likes to “smoke out” the enemy.
Comment by tom — November 21, 2003 @ 12:42 pm
I don’t find the tobacco companies any more evil than most large corporations. A lot of them sell you products that will kill you. All major corporations spread lie about their product and spread FUD about their critics. Now don’t get me wrong I completly support the right of every human being to kill themselves as quickly or as slowly as they desire. And I support the right for enterprising parties to provide the means for them to do that. Whether it’s drugs, alchohol, tobacco, cheeseburgers, or hookers; I’m all for it. The real problem is not that there are companies out there providing products that will kill you and/or destroy your quality of life, it’s that they are lying about it. I’ve never met a drug dealer who’s less than honest about his product. They have it, you want it, and you both know it’s not good for you. You buy it anyway. This difference with companies in this country is that they lie (or simply hide the truth) about what they’re product can do to you. BUT ITS THE SAME FOR EVERY COMPANY THERE IS. Advertisers don’t tell us that reality TV rots our brain, that our clothes are made in sweat shops, or anything they think will hurt sales. Instead of selectively punishing the companies we want why not just make them be truthful about their product?
Comment by andrew — November 21, 2003 @ 12:58 pm
It’s one thing to lie about your products (which the tobacco industry has taken to a new level with their efforts to create the illusion of scientific uncertainty), but even at their worst, are there any other companies are working overtime to make their products as addictive as possible? Say what you will about the meat industry, but even if meat was as harmful as cigarettes, it’s not like they’re putting crack in hamburgers.
Comment by greg — November 21, 2003 @ 1:29 pm
While Reality TV doesn’t necessarily rot your brain and sweatshop-produced clothes don’t necessarily reduce your enjoyment of the product or cause them to harm you, tobacco kills, and the tobacco companies knew of its harmful effects and stalled every step of the way in admitting it. I believe that by the 80s most adults knew that smoking was as harmful as we know it to be, but they were still complicit in cultivating a younger, less knowledgable clientele. Worse, because their product is physically addictive, and they sold it without acknowledging that fact, they were second only to check cashing and signature loan companies in my book. Their product is designed to kill and convince your body to consume more of it. That is evil.
Comment by Earnest — November 21, 2003 @ 1:33 pm
But most intelligent people knew even by the 50’s that cigarettes were bad. Ask any old truthful smore and they’ll tell you the same thing. My grandfather didn’t quite smoking in 1955 because it was too expensive. He did it because he knew it was bad for him. Companies lie, that’s a fact of life. GM lied about their trucks being liable to blow up. Ford did the same with the Pinto. Enron lied about their finances. McDonald’s hooks kids young and makes them fat.
What we need to do is punish all companies for lying. No more slaps on the wrist. Second we need to ban advertising from children. How young is too young? I’m not qualified to say but I’m sure there are plenty of psychologists who could figure it out.
But what I don’t want to see is anyone saying: “Ban Cigarettes!”, “No more Alcohol!”, “Down with Porn!”. I am an adult and capable of making informed decisions on my own (As long as I’m not being lied to). If I choose to use a product that is going to shorten my life for a momentary increase of pleasure, that is no one’s buisness but my own. It doesn’t hurt you so you shouldn’t be concerned
Comment by andrew — November 21, 2003 @ 1:46 pm
” Say what you will about the meat industry, but even if meat was as harmful as cigarettes, it’s not like they’re putting crack in hamburgers. ”
meat (and any unhealthful diet) can be as dangerous as cigarettes. and they might as well be putting crack in the food, with all the pesticides (that the cows may eat, and therefore they end up in the meat on your plate), and additives put into all processed foods. not to mention the cause of things like mad-cow disease can be linked to forced cannibalism feeding practices of some meat companies. adding of growth hormones, etc…
here’s an alphabetical list of common food additives and the problems they can cause.
http://www.dinner-movie.com/Food_Additives.htm
as for the “addictive” additives of food. sugar is addictive. and there are studies that point to fat and transfat having addictive properties. if you look at the list of ingerdients in something like the french fries at your average fast food chain- tell me why else would they put so much sugar in a fried potato strip? to addict you.
Comment by tom — November 21, 2003 @ 2:28 pm
I guess, but if I tried eating ten packs of fries a day, I would be off fries for the rest of my life after a week. So I don’t know that they’re addictive in quite the same way.
Comment by Kyle — November 21, 2003 @ 2:45 pm
nobody eats 10 packs of fries (if you do you have other problems) and few people smoke 10 packs of cigareetes a day. but compare one pack of cigarettes to one large order of fries a day…
Comment by tom — November 21, 2003 @ 2:49 pm
as for the “addictive” additives of food. sugar is addictive. and there are studies that point to fat and transfat having addictive properties.
Are you honestly trying to suggest that sugar is as addictive as nicotine?
if you look at the list of ingerdients in something like the french fries at your average fast food chain- tell me why else would they put so much sugar in a fried potato strip? to addict you.
Y’know, sometimes ingredients are added to food to improve their taste or appearance.
Comment by greg — November 21, 2003 @ 3:43 pm
“Are you honestly trying to suggest that sugar is as addictive as nicotine? ”
NO- that’s debatable (and i think there is room for an argument there)- but your question was:
“are there any other companies are working overtime to make their products as addictive as possible?”
and that was my answer to that.
“Y’know, sometimes ingredients are added to food to improve their taste or appearance”
that’s bullshit- sugar does not need to be added to french fries to improve their taste- ask any fan of In-N-Out Burger. they have no additives and people praise them for that.
the only reason that people like the sugarified versions of food is because they’ve stuffed their pie-holes so full of unnatural foods their whole life, that they’ve forgotten how good natural food can be. i wouldn’t expect most people to understand that- but believe me, go vegan and within a month carrots will start tasting like candy, and candy will start tasting like medicine.
and the reason the fast food places add sugar (and other unneeded ingredients) to their products is to make it “better” than their rival fast food places. Mcdonalds wants their sugary french fries to taste different (and possibly better) than burger king’s so you’ll keep coming back for more Mc-fries. and sugar (as well as other ingredients) have addictive properties to them.
besides- on the nicotine thing, as an ex-smoker, i honestly believe that at least 80% (if not more) of the addiction is psychological- not a physical addiction to nicotine. but then i wasn’t ever a heavy pack-aday smoker. when i decided to quit, it was easy. until i found myself in a bar surrounded by people who were smoking, and i thought “why not.” but i never once had a physical need for a cigarette.
Comment by tom — November 21, 2003 @ 5:30 pm
Dood, I think I went vegan first, and carrots do not taste like candy. Unless they’re cooked in soy margarine… mmmm…
Comment by Danimal — November 21, 2003 @ 7:14 pm
I don’t really understand how one would ban advertising from children, but I don’t really understand equating regular corporate lies with what the cigarette industry did. They are horrible in different ways. What I take issue with with cigarette companies is their reluctance to admit the addictiveness of their product and their determination to get as many people hooked as possible. If the auto industry urged you to go off-roading in a Suzuki Sidekick, that would be the equivalent and then only if they used a hypnotist to convince you to do it over and over again.
Comment by Earnest Pettie — November 21, 2003 @ 7:34 pm
Mcdonalds wants their sugary french fries to taste different (and possibly better) than burger king’s so you’ll keep coming back for more Mc-fries. and sugar (as well as other ingredients) have addictive properties to them.
But I don’t understand how McDonalds adding a light sugar glaze to their french fries constitutes “working overtime to make their products as addictive as possible”. Isn’t the idea that sugar might be addictive fairly recent (last 20 years or so)? McDonald’s has been making their fries the same way for decades. Unless they have a crystal ball, there’s probably a better explanation for the inclusion of sugar. (I’ve always thought the sugar was there to caramelize during the frying to give the fries a deeper golden-brown color).
By the way, as far as the addictiveness of sugar is concerned, here’s a relevant quote from the “Addiction Myths” section of the website for the Addiction Science Research and Education Center
Sugar is “addicting”. The term “addiction” as used by the public, does not have an exact scientific meaning. A better term is “dependence” (as defined by DSM, see table at the end of this section). Sugar cannot satisfy 3 or more of the DSM criteria for dependence, therefore sugar is not addicting, in a scientific or clinical sense.
By the way, as far as your experience with smoking, this quote from the same site above indicates that you’re one of the lucky ones :
Anyone who uses drugs too much or too often will become “addicted”. We know this doesn’t occur in everyone, anymore than diabetes occurs in everyone who eats too much sugar or food. It now appears that a person must “have what it takes” to become dependent on drugs. In many cases, genetics is the main risk factor for determining who develops the disease.
Comment by greg — November 24, 2003 @ 11:52 am