https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wibHcZ4FNbU
This article leaves out something. Smoking in the Unites states started to rise in the 20th century because the U.S. government promoted it.
If you look at charts, smoking was pretty low in the United States in the early 20th century.
It started rising when the government started giving cigarettes to service members in World War I. If you look at the charts, that's when smoking started to grow in the U.S., and it kept growing into the 60's.
My understanding is that cigarettes were part of a service members rations until 1975.
And yet lawyers and big pharma still advertise.
Wow that long ago? Man, if I don’t already feel old enough. I remember cigarette commercials use to be all over the place, everywhere, on magazines, TV, on buses, subways, newspapers, radios, billboards, even sports programs. I think if a kid in his 20s went back in time to the 1960s, 50s, they would be utterly shocked how acceptable smoking was back then. I remember the smoking car on the Long Island railroad and smoking on airplanes. “Smoke when the light comes on” lol lol Even in the 1980s having meetings at work and the ashtray in the middle of the table and people lighting up. It really was a nationwide addiction for decades, a scam that did absolutely nothing for the consumer but feed an addiction and take their money.
Don’t smoke, never have. And yet I’ll ya, it seems to me that the America that loved tobacco was a better place than the America that hates tobacco. Conversely, I remember the America that prohibited marijuana as a better place than the America that now embraces cannabis.
Part of the popularity of smoking was that many people found that smoking settled their nerves and relaxed them. Considering the stresses of military life and combat, until the evidence showed the long terms harm, it made considerable sense at the time to promote smoking through regular military rations.
I remember reading somewhere
that cigarettes were added to
service members’ rations to
curb hunger. I’m old enough
to remember most all of the
commercials. Tareyton, Salem,
L&M, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall,
Marlboro. Lost both my father
and mother to the effects of
smoking. Both died of heart
attacks.
Cigarette machines in IBM buildings. Smoking in offices and conference rooms and IBM matchbooks with their logo printed on them. My how times changed.
And began the death of NASCAR into nutscar.
The female model in that ad is Veronica Hamel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Hamel
Oh God, I’m old.
My cousin’s husband was a pilot in Vietnam, F4. In every ration box he got there were 3 cigarettes. Same as Korea ww1 & ww2.
Then all those servicemen came home with a nicotine addiction. Just as some came home addicted to heroin.
I’m 71, so I remember a lot of the cigarette commercials, as well as pipe tobacco commercials and professional athletes advertising cigars.
The Marlboro man
Winston tastes good like a cigarette should
I’d rather fight than switch
LSMFT (Lucky Strikes mean fine tobacco)
You’ve come a long way, baby
A Volkswagen Beatle getting a replacement windshield to make room for the Benson and Hedges 100
ff
“It features Virginia Slims’ controversial attempt to cash in on the women’s liberation movement with the tag line “You’ve come a long way, baby.”
They sure don’t hate the tax and settlement money the companies bring in.
Tobacco is bad, but marijuana is good for you. Okay, what BS. Things that needs to be banned from advertising: marijuana products, lawyers, doctors and Democrats running for office...
Years ago I read a column in the Baltimore Sun (back when I didn't pay attention to media agenda) by IIRC Kevin Cowherd (before he went national) about cartoon characters and smoking (this was when the Simpsons were new so he left out mention of Patty and Selma). Cowherd suggested that Fred Flintstone would be a three pack a day man if cigarettes actually existed in the stone age.
ff
‘...although health experts strongly disagree...’
yeah, I give a lot of credence to ‘health experts’...
I was in my initial Army training in 1975 and yes, cigs were still included in ration meals that were handed out to all of us.
As a non-smoker, I have only been able to acquire second-hand coolness by hanging out with those that do.
