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Today’s congressional hearings, when the major oil company executives will face the public’s wrath about the BP oil spill, are being compared by some to the hearings on April 14, 1994 when the executives of the seven major cigarette makers testified before Congress about their policies. But the problem under scrutiny today is just a drop in the bucket compared to that caused by smoking,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], suggests Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), America’s first antismoking organization. [link widoczny dla zalogowanych].
Smoking, then as now,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], kills almost half a million Americans a year in the U.S. and millions more worldwide, yet the human toll from the BP oil disaster is closer to a dozen,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], notes public interest law professor John Banzhaf, Executive Director of ASH. Many in Congress are pressing BP to set up a $20 billion escrow fund to help insure that the company and its stockholders will pay for the damages they are causing to the many innocent victims.
But smoking costs the American public almost $200 billion a year — 10 times the BP estimate — most of which is paid by innocent nonsmokers in the form of higher taxes to pay for excess medical care under Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs, bloated health insurance premiums to cover the costs of diseases caused or exacerbated by smoking, excess disability and time lost from work, cigarette fires,cheap-marlborocigarettes.com, and many other causes. In short, smoking annually costs about 10 times as much as the BP disaster,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and it reimposes this cost year after year after year.
The average level of adult smoking in 2009 across the 353,849 interviews conducted in Gallup Healthways’ daily interviewing was 21%. This average represents substantial differences in smoking across age groups. Smoking is significantly below average among Americans currently in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, while above average at most age points between 18 and 59. The drop-off in smoking rates among older Americans no doubt has multiple causes.
One unfortunate epidemiological truth arises from the fact that older Americans who persist in the habit are more likely than those who don’t smoke to have died, leaving nonsmokers as an increasingly higher percentage of the older population. It may also be that older Americans stop smoking as its associated health problems become more manifest, and/or that older Americans have become more health conscious and thus more likely to take heed of warnings about the deleterious effects of smoking. 1954: Marlboro Cowboy created for Philip Morris by Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett.
“Delivers the Goods on Flavor” ran the slogan in newspaper ads. 1955: Smokers: Males: 56.9 percent; females: 28.4 percent 1955: CBS’ “See It Now” airs first TV show linking cigarette smoking with lung cancer and other diseases. (For the first time on TV,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Edward R. Murrow is not seen smoking. He had not quit; he felt it was “too late” to stop. Murrow died of lung cancer in 1965.) 1964: First Surgeon General’s Report linking smoking and lung cancer: Smoking and Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service. [link widoczny dla zalogowanych].
1965: Congress passes the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act requiring the following Surgeon General’s Warning on the side of cigarette packs: “Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health.” 1969: Pan American Airlines creates the first nonsmoking sections on its jumbo jets; United Airlines did the same two years later. 1971-01-02: REGULATION: TV: Cigarette ads are taken off TV and radio as Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 takes effect. Broadcast industry loses c. $220 Million in ads (Ad Age, “History of TV Advertising”).
The last commercial on U.S. TV is a Virginia Slims ad, aired at 11:59 p.m. on the Johnny Carson Tonight show,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Jan. 1, 1971. The ad featured actress Veronica Hamel. 1987: Aspen, Colo., becomes the first city in the United States to ban smoking in restaurants. 1992: Nicotine patch is introduced.