At Issue; 11; Tobacco Troubles

Within a few weeks, the Surgeon General of the United States will issue a report on the possible health hazards of smoking. The British government has already labeled the cigarette as a link to lung cancer and distributes this poster widely. Dr. Kyler Hammond of the American Cancer Society issued a report this month stating that the highest death rates were of those who smoked cigarettes. Now I think you could summarize it in terms of what it means to the average cigarette smoker in terms about like this. Unfortunately all of us are going to die sometime, whether or not you smoke you are going to die. But as we get older our bodies tend to deteriorate and certain very unpleasant things happen. In the first place we tend to get short of breath, we tend to fatigue easily. We are much more likely to have to go to the hospital, that is the older we get the more there's a curve.

Furthermore death rates from cancer of all types go up very rapidly as you get older or you are the more likely you are to get. Now the difference between the cigarette smoker and the non-smoker that all these things unfortunately occur and we associate with old age and deterioration occur very much sooner in the cigarette smoker and the non-smoker. More heavily smokes and the earlier age you begin the quicker these things happen to it. I think the tobacco industry in America as far as cigarettes are concerned may have unknowingly written their own editorial and advertisements. At one time this was a whole series based upon the theme it's fun to be fooled, it's more fun to know and here the magician is going to make this lady disappear in thin air and I'm sure that the tobacco industry would wish nothing more than if the health aspects of cigarettes and other tobacco products which are so plainly evident now were also to disappear into thin air I'm afraid the problem is not going to be that easy.

National Educational Television Presents At Issue a weekly commentary on events and people in the news. This week at Issue looks at tobacco troubles, the crisis facing a national habit. Commentator is Matt Clark, Medicine Editor of Newsweek Magazine. Any day now a blue ribbon committee of scientists appointed by the Surgeon General is expected to give a definitive opinion on the hazards of smoking to health. If this distinguished panel concludes that smoking is an important cause of one cancer, heart disease and other ailments the Surgeon General will direct another study on what

action the government should take. To many the case against the cigarette is already strong enough to warrant action. But what makes this public health question unique is the enormous impact a campaign against tobacco would have on the American economy. This program will not deal with the scientific evidence but with the broad political, economic and social problems that the smoking and health issue raises. What action follows the Surgeon General's report will be influenced by these factors. Will concern for the health of some 67 million Americans who smoke be the determining factor in what we do or might these other issues outweigh health. Senator Marie Newberger of Oregon gave up smoking several years ago after an illness. She is now one of the leading congressional critics of the tobacco industry. If Spinach were tobacco or we'd ban it in a moment, the thing is we're dealing here with an $8 billion industry. The excise taxes and the manufacture of tobacco pay into the United States Treasury well

over $2 billion in revenue and it's pretty hard for an individual to do something to cut off his own income and the U.S. government is no different. For Senator Thruston B. Morton, tobacco troubles can close to home. He represents Kentucky, one of the six major tobacco states. He has tobacco plays a very vital role in the economy of the nation and in the economy of my state of Kentucky it certainly does. For example in Kentucky there are 165,000 farmers that have some tobacco base. The total that they get for their tobacco, the total harvest, brings about $280 million. So it's about $1,800 average for each farmer that raises it. In another illustrated figure this means $90 for every man, woman and child in Kentucky or about $450 or $400 per family.

We in Kentucky are way down the ladder on per capita income without tobacco. I don't know where we'd be. It's not just the farmer that raises it but in Louisville alone, our largest metropolitan area, I think there are 12,000 jobs that depend on tobacco processing or cigarette manufacturing or building the cartons or making the containers that ship it. On the highways of Kentucky you see these big trucks carrying these hogs heads of tobacco trucking them over to North Carolina and other places and I just couldn't estimate the number of jobs and that's just one state. In the nation as a whole I think it's interesting to note that it's our fifth largest agricultural crop and our third largest export crop and in these days of talking of balance of payments and shortage of the dollar it certainly plays an impressive role. Also it yields to state, local and federal government $3,200,200,000 per year in taxes. In other words it pays into access to back of products to nearly three times the total

value of the crop and I know we're talking tax reduction in the Congress but we can afford to lose $3,000,000 more which comes from tobacco and tobacco products. The problems of Senator Morton's Kentucky are shared by Virginia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. Just how important tobacco is to these states can be seen in South Carolina where the state school system is entirely supported by tobacco tax revenues. These six states comprise a powerful voting block in Congress. Some of the key congressional committees are shared by tobacco state legislators. Any proposals to restrict the sale or advertising of cigarettes will have to face massive southern opposition. And tobacco industry helps support another major business, advertising. Stanley Cohen is the Washington editor of the Weekly Trade publication Advertising Age. Well, the tobacco companies are big advertisers. In 1962 the six big companies spent $222 million.

All six of these companies are in the top 100 national advertisers. Four of them are in the top 25. One half of their $222 million was spent in television. And all six of these companies were among the top 25 network television advertisers. They also are important advertisers in newspapers and magazines and you'll find that at least three of the companies will be in the top 25 advertisers in these classifications. In recent years the companies have introduced many new brands and they've discovered that if they can make a new brand click it is a very profitable venture. But this is a costly venture. And well for example last year Montclair was introduced by American as a new king size menthol brand. American knew that in order to have a successful brand it must sell 10 billion cigarettes a year.

And they introduced this brand Montclair with a budget of 10 million dollars the first year. They hoped that once they had reached that 10 billion unit level they would be able to cut their advertising back to five to seven million dollars a year. That money doesn't just stay in the pockets of the owners of television networks and newspapers and magazines. It supports Hollywood talent, it trickles down a film companies to manufacturers of paper, to reporters on newspapers. And so it's the lifeblood of our media communications. So the advertising people are feel here that they're performing some kind of a useful service. Dr. Michael Schimpkin is professor of medicine at Temple University Medical School and was formerly with the U.S. Public Health Service. He has some interesting observations about the evolution of cigarette advertising. I started before World War I and this is a typical advertisement, richly done advertising

Omar cigarettes when these products were equated with pleasure and relaxation only. In the cigarette industry in the 1920s made great efforts to induce women to enter into this happy picture. The advertiser still did not dare at this particular moment to put a cigarette actually into the lady's hand but at least she enjoyed the second type of smoking approach as pictured here. However, not many years later the cigarette now is actually to be found in the hand of the woman. I also am very fond of the costume of that era that is portrayed on this lady. We then get into a great phase of cigarette advertisements where not only are cigarettes purported to be pure wholesome and completely clean but even acquire medicinal properties. Going back to something one hears even now that one of the reasons you smoke is because

it decreases your appetite presumably and therefore you're avoiding another health hazard out of obesity by smoking cigarettes. We were in the depression then and another great medical feature of cigarette smoking again camels in this instance was that these were sort of a poor man's tranquilizer. This idea that cigarettes are a socializing and social tranquilizer of course still persists and undoubtedly it has a symbolic role in our culture in this way. I think that this is probably the acme of this medicinal campaign and strangely enough the cigarette companies which so greatly deny the validity of data based on what they call statistics are using it full force in this particular advertisement and misusing it of course. This was a remarkable attempt to tie Dr. approval with smoking by the presumed fact that more doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette.

This was old gold which is trying to struggle for the ever increasing market in cigarettes and its slogan was not a cough in a carload. This is a sort of a double type of advertising because obviously it admits even tangentially that there is some effect it's not quite as desirable as some of the previous ads showed one of them being a cough. People here invent something called a T zone and they too quite conclusively claim that no throat irritation attributable to camels was ever observed in their particular test. This is the first advertisement or one of the first advertisements in which portrays the great change in the market of cigarettes which has occurred in the last 15 years. About the only data we really have on all the filters in terms of the health effects is the statement I have from one of my colleagues who was asked a question what effect filters

have on lung cancer occurrence following smoking cigarettes and he says well that's easy you develop a filtered cancer. I think this is one of the wonders of advertising in which cigarettes become equated with virile manhood. Of course obviously sex rears its beautiful head in the background. This is the tattooed man of Marvel which was the first one of a long series of people who then drew tattoo marks on their arms. Here's a man that's smoking cigarettes. He has a filter to protect them from dangers that the cigarette companies refuse to recognize and add it to everything else that's even a flip top box. Their leading critic of cigarette advertising is surprisingly enough, Leroy Collins, president of the National Association of Broadcasters. He has asked his own broadcasters to exercise greater control over cigarette companies. I have in mind one particular advertisement which I think is most offensive. It's one that was developed by the Lucky Strike people you know where they say Lucky Strike

separates the men from the boys but not from the girls. Now I think this is a brazen, cynical, flouting of the concern that millions of parents and others have for the youth of America and I think I should say so and anyone else should say so. Because here the theme of the commercial is to equate smoking with manliness. Now the tobacco people well know that every boy aspires to be a man and every boy aspires to have manly habits and manly manners. The high school coach always tells the football boys out on the field now this afternoon and I'll practice we're going to separate the men for the boys. Now that of course is fallacious and false in its concept and it's wrong in its spirit and its purpose as so far as my feet is concerned.

We invited the American tobacco company and its advertising agency to answer Mr. Collins. They chose to stand by this quotation from a column in the New York Times of December 5th. Quote, it is possible to distort the meaning of any ad but I can't see how our copy could be more explicit in quote. The spokesman noted that copy on Lucky Strike ad always pointed out that quote, smoking is a pleasure meant for adults. If you're an adult smoker remember L.S. M.F.T. unquote. Finally, Leroy Collins told us that he believes smoking is a hazard which we all have to deal with. I think that the whole nation has got to face up to this as a very serious responsibility and I'm set in motion procedures to remedy it but I don't think that the people should expect the broadcast to carry the whole load of this or the newspapers or the advertising media because this responsibility starts really long before you get to the advertising

media. The advertising techniques that are used to promote cigarettes are also used to discourage smoking as you can see on these posters. In an early American cigarette ad it's the smoker who's a happy man. In the Russian poster the non-smoker wears the smile. The American Cancer Society with headquarters in New York provides much of the evidence of the hazards of smoking and wages the most active campaign against the smoking habit. The society's vice president for public information and education is Clifton Reed. Well, it seems to me that one of the major forces in influencing people on this whole cigarette business has been the amazing coverage in the news columns, in radio, in magazines and also in television, reporting on the research that the American Cancer Society and other

agencies have conducted in this field. Just last year our board decided that we ought to be doing more to change the image of the smoker for the youngster. To make the smoker seem a square and the non-smoker seem one of the in-group, the sophisticated attractive mature man or woman. We were able to interest a Madison Avenue agency, Hockaday Associates in helping us in our approach on this subject and they suggested that we do this type of ad, and when I say ad, I mean public service ad, these are all carried by the publisher without expense. This is an ad of Bob Matthias, who is a very attractive young athlete and who says I don't smoke and gives the reasons for not smoking.

Now, when this, at the same time, we issued some radio spots, used quite a forward on one of them, explaining why he'd given up smoking and why he felt it was unwise for youngsters to begin smoking. The announcement of this program got an immense amount of attention in your time, newsweek, the advertising publications, it was striking what interest they showed and how many times they reproduced these ads. We're not sure yet how much actual pickup the ads as ads are going to have in magazines. But we've tried out these and other ads on a number of publications and they have been told that the editors and advertising managers felt this was a problem that should better

be handled in the news columns or the editorial columns. Despite the increased attacks on smoking, cigarette sales are expected to be better than ever this year. For each report linking cigarettes to cancer, sales go down, then bounce right back to new highs. The cartoonist barrenman of the Washington star shows the cigarette industry crying all the way to the bank. How does the cigarette industry respond to all this? Individually, the cigarette companies are silent. Their advertising agencies will not comment. All our questions were referred to the chairman of the tobacco institute, Mr. George V. Allen. He told us about the tobacco industry's own research on cigarettes done through its research committee. Allen reported on some findings. They have taken done such things as use the concentrates from smoke, for example, and paint the skins of various animals.

They have made animals breathe, smoke, and inhale, smoke over long periods of time. They have not been able to induce human type lung cancer in the lungs of laboratory animals. You can spend an awful lot of time and money and effort trying to do that. If the result comes out negative, you don't have a great announcement to make headlines in the newspapers. Most of the studies, the scientific studies which have been pursuing this hypothesis that the statistics point to have been negative. Allen was asked where the industry directs its appeal. I believe that it is the general view of the tobacco industry that smoking should be a custom for adults. You may know that last July, I believe it was, the tobacco institute announced that most of the tobacco companies had decided to discontinue any further advertising in college

magazines and newspapers, and also to discontinue any further promotion in colleges. That was an action taken by individual tobacco manufacturers, and many people have asked why that decision was taken. The first place are college students of adults. Some people say if a man is old enough to fight for his country, he's old enough to make up his own mind about things like smoking. However, I recognize, certainly, that most of the emotion in this whole business is smoking. He's found in the very field of teenage smoking, of young children and teenagers smoking. And most people feel that that is a very bad thing. I certainly do. I've got three children, and I'm certainly glad that they haven't started in that teenagers. Tobacco's troubles are increasing.

What about the future? Here's what some of our observers foresee. Never once have I advocated a prohibition measure. But I think the government has a role to protect the general welfare of its people. And they can do this by legislation requiring accurate labeling of cigarette packages as to their content of tar, nicotines, and phenols, that we can have a government-sponsored educational program to inform the people. I think we need regulation of the advertising. Well, the advertising industry is scared. There's a real dilemma here. Here's a product which a large number of people use and want to use, which is an important product in the economy of the country. It's important not only to the farmers and to the governments which collect tax revenues,

but it's also important to our media of mass communications. You see, the tobacco that they buy now on this market, they won't use for two and a half of three years. The tobacco has to be aged, but they are continuing to build up their stocks at about a normal level. So I don't think that they anticipate that suddenly the industry is going out of business. The little tobacco farmer is a person who I feel sorry for. He can make his living off of about 15 acres. There's something about tobacco that you can grow in a concentrated way. We will just have to explore another way for him to make a living. But the health of millions of people is important to our economy too. And for every trained doctor, professional man, laboring man, nurse, senator who has taken off his job and therefore out of the economy, he costs us a great deal too.

And loss man power. So I think that's a very important consideration. Tobacco has been a subject to controversy, of course, for a very long time. And if the scientific evidence were as you describe, or as the American Medical Association says that they are going to try to find out the relationship if any, between smoking and health. And if there is any, what particular thing there is that causes the damage. The scientific brains that can discover that, I think, can discover the how to take care of. It's a scientific question. While science is looking for a way out, the tobacco industry must face another problem, a legal one. Nearly a score of suits have been brought against cigarette manufacturers by lung cancer victims. New juries have decided that smoking was the cause of lung cancer.

Although they did not hold the company's responsible. They reasoned that at the time the smokers incurred their disease, science hadn't established cigarettes as a cause of lung cancer. But in rendering an advisory opinion in one of these cases, the Florida Supreme Court disagreed. It said that according to Florida law, a cigarette company was liable even without knowledge of the health hazards of smoking. How this will affect further judgments in the issue remains to be seen. The tobacco industry's troubles are mounting. Most observers expect that the Surgeon General's Committee cannot escape the conclusion that cigarettes are an important hazard. Senator Newberger is ready to file legislation calling for labeling of the tar and nicotine content of cigarettes and restrictions on advertising appeals to young people. In addition, educational campaigns against smoking, such as the one started by the American Cancer Society will become widespread. At the same time, the tobacco industry will be ready with a campaign of its own.

Its spokesman will continue to argue that there are still many aspects of the smoking and health problem that remain to be explored, and that it is too early to act. Recently, no lesser group than the American Medical Association gave support to this position by calling for further research. The tobacco industry and its tobacco troubles will be with us for a long time. The tobacco industry will be ready with a campaign of its own. This is NET, National Educational Television.

This is NET, National Educational Television.