All posts by Pepe Lepew

Bill O’Reilly claims he could’ve been a Marlboro Man

April 19, 2014 Pepe Lepew

Bill O’Reilly — yeah, the right-wing gasbag on Fox News — claims he was once offered a job modeling as a Marlboro Man back in the 1970s. (Good thing for Bill that he turned it down, because Marlboro Men tend to die.)

Bill used this bombshell to rag on marijuana. He said that while he supports the government’s efforts to fight tobacco use, government — and society as a whole — is implicit in encouraging more marijuana use.

I’m not a big marijuana advocate, but Billo is wrong for three very huge reasons — 1) tobacco kills 440,000 people a year, while marijuana kills ??? a year 2) tobacco is physically addicting for everyone who uses it, while only a small percentage of pot users become addicted (and it’s more a psychological addiction than physical) and 3) every study that has been done on the subject shows that pot does not cause lung cancer.

I love this quote from Billo:

Smoking marijuana is quite the opposite. That’s on the rise, as pot use is considered cool in many circles, and above all it is political correct,” he said.

Yeah, guess what, man. It’s uptight squares like you ripping on pot that just makes it more cool. You know, they figured this stuff out in the 1970s, get with the times.

bill O'reilly 1999 — Bill O’Reilly 1979, studmuffin

Of course, what he’s really saying is liberals love pot but hate cigarettes. Again, read above, pot, for all of its negative issues (and I believe there are negatives to pot, again, I’m not a big advocate of it) is a) NOT killing 440,000 Americans a year, 2) NOT physically addictive like nicotine and 3) Does NOT cause lung cancer.

So, it’s a stupid argument, even for Bill O’Reilly.

E-cig advertising, e-cigarette advertising, e-cigarettes, e-cigs, Uncategorized

Congressional report on ecigarettes focuses on marketing to kids

April 19, 2014 Pepe Lepew

This might be the beginning of the end for the wild and woolly world of ecig advertising.

Sen. Dick Durbin, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, California Rep. Henry Waxman, three of the biggest anti-tobacco do-gooders in Congress wrote the report about how ecig advertising is being directed at kids the same way tobacco advertising was directed at kids 30 years ago.

In the words of the AP story:

While the Food and Drug Administration plans to set marketing and product regulations for electronic cigarettes in the near future, for now, almost anything goes.

This is absolutely true: Almost anything goes. You have ecig billboards with Santa Claus; ads in Sports Illustrated with ecigs advertised on women’s bikini bottoms.

In addition to marketing, the congressional report also talks about sugary flavours for ecigs, lack of warning labels and no age restrictions for their use. (That seems easy to me, no nicotine products at all for people under 18).

The FDA moves glacially slow. In 2011, the agency said it was going to regulated ecigs (but the agency has done virtually nothing yet. As an aside, the FDA was put in charge of nicotine five or six years ago and has done little but ban candy-flavoured cigarettes and Indian cigarettes). Supposedly, the proposed FDA regulations over ecig advertising were submitted in October of last year.

“I can’t understand why the FDA is taking this long,” Durbin said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It is clear that the longer they wait, the more young people will be addicted.”

While ecigs might be effective in helping some people quit smoking, there’s absolutely no reason for kids to be using them as a substitute for cigarettes, and it appears with some of the advertising that that is the intent. Ecigs give off steam and nicotine. Nicotine is still incredibly addictive, even if it comes from an ecig, and it’s still a drug with plenty of side effects. No reason to get kids started on it, period. I’m all for people quitting via ecigs, but this marketing crap needs to be cracked down on. I would like to see the FDA act yesterday, and it looks like several people in Congress would, too.

Anti-tobacco campaign, Uncategorized

Great old anti-smoking commercial

April 12, 2014 Pepe Lepew 3 Comments

Got this from SmokeFreeCA. A really cute and very old anti-smoking ad featuring “Johnny Smoke.”

It appears to be from the 1960s and a direct counter to the Marlboro Man. This is apparently from 1967 or 1968.

Using some pretty primitive animation, the commercial asks, “how many saddles will be empty tonight?” “How many tears will be shed because of you?”

This commercial was put out by the American Heart Association. I’m curious who does the narration. It sounds a lot like Thurl Ravenscroft, who did the narration to the original “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

Hey, I just realized this video reminds me of Primus’ “Lee Van Cleef”

baseball, Chew in baseball, Chewing tobacco, Ian Desmond

Washington Nationals’ Ian Desmond quitting tobacco

April 12, 2014 Pepe Lepew

Nice story from the Washington Post about the Nationals’ All-Star shortstop Ian Desmond. I think I’ve mentioned before that the Washington Post is one of the most anti-tobacco newspapers I’ve seen out there.

As we all know, baseball has a huge chew problem, which begins way back in high school. The minor leagues have banned players using chew during games, but MLB, while it has been discussed from time to time, has never taken action to stop players from chewing tobacco during games. For some reason, chew is deeply ingrained in the culture of baseball.

Anyway, Ian Desmond decided to quit chewing this past offseason. In this story, he admits that it has been difficult to quit. Keep in mind, chew has nicotine just like cigarettes and is just as physically addicting as cigarettes. A few excerpts from the Washington Post story:

He sent his mother, Pattie Paradise, a text message from inside the clubhouse. “I’m having a hard time,” he wrote. Having pleaded with him to stop for years, Paradise sent back, “You can do it.”

After Soriano fooled Jason Heyward with a nervy, 3-2 slider to strand two runners, Desmond retreated to the clubhouse. By the time Desmond stood in front of reporters, he had made it through the day without a dip.

“That was a bigger victory than beating the Braves,” Desmond said. “I’ve done it for a long time. I’m really trying hard to quit.”

Desmond could celebrate a win and an achievement. He stopped dipping before December and made it through spring training for the first time since he became a professional 10 years ago at 18. Desmond admitted he broke down Saturday night and packed his lip. But he viewed it as a small hurdle.

“That was back on the wagon, off the wagon,” Desmond said. “It’s not easy. I feel for people who have to deal with this stuff on a larger scale. I’m not proud that it’s got that control over me. But I’m fighting it.

“I hate to say this because I know there’s going to be kids that hear this. For me, growing up, it was part of the game. That’s what it was. When I put my uniform on, I feel like that’s part of what I need to put on. It just goes with the job, for me. I’m trying to shake it off.”

Desmond mother practically begged him not to dip Sunday morning. He had listened, and then he blasted the biggest home run of the Nationals’ first week. It may have been a coincidence, but Desmond will hold on to it. “That’s incentive enough right there,” he said.

Good job, Ian. Good luck. Hope youhave more success at quitting than Terry Francona.

Ian’s decision to quit prompted a letter to the editor from James T. Currie from the Public Health Service congratulating him.

Smoking bans, U.S. Military

Tobacco sales may soon be banned on U.S. military bases, U.S. Navy ships

April 6, 2014 Pepe Lepew

Remember the ubiquitous image of a dog-faced World War II soldier smoking a Lucky Strike between shellings from the Nazis? Well, that image has come a long way.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel came out last week and said he is considering banning all tobacco sales on military bases.

Hagel was quoted as saying:

“We don’t allow smoking in any of our government buildings. Restaurants, states, [and] municipalities have pretty clear regulations on this. I think in reviewing any options that we have as to whether we in the military through commissaries [or] PXs sell or continue to sell tobacco is something we need to look at. And we are looking at it. And I think we owe it to our people.”

A recent DofD study showed that smoking rates among people in the military is slightly higher than among civilians — about 24 percent to 20 percent.

No word when such a recommendation might be coming forward.

Additionally (nice sidebar on this story), the Navy is considering banning tobacco sales on all of its ships. Surprising, a commander actually tried to ban tobacco sales on his ship — the USS Theodore Roosevelt, back in 1993, but get this, a Congressional subcommittee got involved (wonder if Big Tobacco got in the middle of this) and mandated that tobacco sales be allowed on all vessels. Then the Navy passed a regulation allowing smoking on all ships. Unbelievable!

According to Stars & Stripes:

Although the statute was overturned later by Congress, the story of the Roosevelt demonstrated the former power of the tobacco lobby and its interest in the military market.

In 20 years, times have changed. The Navy now does not allow sailors on active duty to take “smoking breaks.

e-cigarettes, e-cigs, liquid nicotine

Confirmed: Poisonings from liquid nicotine up dramatically — Centers for Disease Control

April 5, 2014 Pepe Lepew 3 Comments

This is a follow-up to a post from a few weeks ago and confirms the point some articles were making about increasing poisonings from nicotine juice for e-cigs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control latest Mortality and Morbidity report (man, I used to read these things religiously), the rate of reported nicotine poisonings rose from 1 per month in September 2010 to a whopping 215 per month in February 2014. Whoa!

More than half of these poison centre calls involved children under the age of 5.

According to the CDC release:

“This report raises another red flag about e-cigarettes – the liquid nicotine used in e-cigarettes can be hazardous,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “Use of these products is skyrocketing and these poisonings will continue. E-cigarette liquids as currently sold are a threat to small children because they are not required to be childproof, and they come in candy and fruit flavors that are appealing to children.”

“The most recent National Youth Tobacco Survey showed e-cigarette use is growing fast, and now this report shows e-cigarette related poisonings are also increasing rapidly,” said Tim McAfee, M.D., M.P.H., Director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. “Health care providers, e-cigarette companies and distributors, and the general public need to be aware of this potential health risk from e-cigarettes.”

I’ve said this in the past, I’m on the fence about e-cigs: If they genuinely help some people quit smoking, I’m all for that. But, buy a clue about how toxic that liquid nicotine can be for your e-cigs. Jesus, if you have kids and are using e-cigs, keep those liquid nicotine containers locked up and out of kids’ reach.

Friday Harbor, smoking, smoking around kids, Smoking bans

When I became militant about cigarettes

April 5, 2014 Pepe Lepew

This image I saw from Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids reminds me of a story. I pinpoint it to the day I became militant about smoking.

I grew up around smoking. I breathed six packs a day worth of secondhand smoke from my parents (dad — 4 packs a day, mom — 2 packs a day). I remember whining to them about how much their smoking was bothering me in the car, and I was told “just roll down the window.” They didn’t want to hear it. I remember how bad their smoke was in the RV all night when we went camping.

Well, sure enough, I had a ton of ear infections as a kid. Had to have surgery on my ears because of the ear infections, probably caused by my parents’ smoking. In my early teens I started getting bronchitis all the time. By the time I hit college age, any head cold would immediately migrate to my chest and it would turn into 6 weeks of coughing. Twice in my 20s, I came down with pneumonia (and one time pleurisy). Only at the age of 29 did I finally grow out of that annual cycle of bronchitis and 6-8 weeks every winter of nonstop coughing.

Anyway, this brings me to Vic’s Drive Inn in Friday Harbor, Wash. Vic’s was a smoking joint, and in fact, I never sat down in Vic’s as a result. The smoke was SO thick in that place that one time I walked in just to grab a pickup order and walked back to work and everyone made fun of me because I reeked of smoke. I was in the building for less than 10 minutes. It was so bad, I went home and changed.

So, this one other time I walked into Vic’s, there was a fisherman sitting at a table (Friday Harbor was once a fishing town — no more, the fishing industry was in its dying throes at the time), puffing away on his cigarette with about a two-year-old boy sitting in his lap, coughing his head off and bawling. It just made me livid. The kid obviously had a respiratory infection, and there’s dad sitting 12 inches away literally blowing cigarette smoke in his face. Boy, I’m a big believer in not giving smokers shit, but I gave that guy a good glaring. What an asshole, I thought. What a self-centered idiot. It just brought back all my memories of those awful trips in the car and awful nights in the RV around a haze of cigarette smoke, and awful nights with burning eyes and a burning throat. I literally felt like punching the moron. I was really, really furious. I have never been so angry at a smoker.

Instead, years later, I decided to blog about tobacco and to try and be a bit more constructive. Like I said, i will never forget that day, or that kid, or how amazingly stupid that guy was being. This would have been sometime in the mid-1990s.

(As an aside, Vic’s Drive Inn was sold a couple of years after that, and the new owners made it smokefree. I did a big article on it at the time. They said they lost a few customers, but gained a lot more than they lost. Washington went smokefree about 10 years ago and smoking restaurants went away.)

baseball, Chew in baseball, Chewing tobacco, Mouth cancer

Swallowed chew causes big league player to leave game

April 5, 2014 Pepe Lepew 2 Comments

From the “You just can’t make this stuff up” department.

Colorado Rockies centre fielder Carlos Gomez (hey, didn’t he once play for the Twins, Steve Lardy?) had to leave a game because he felt dizzy and sick to his stomach.

Well, it turns out he got sick because he actually accidentally swallowed his tobacco chew.

… cautious relief gave way to comic relief after the game, when Colorado manager Walt Weiss offered a description of what factored into Gonzalez’s condition to MLB.com’s Thomas Harding:

“He might’ve swallowed some dip or something. He landed hard, knocked the wind out of himself, swallowed some dip, dehydration, all those things were factors.”

Nasty! Carlos, you might want to switch to bubble gum. If for no other reason, your mouth, throat and teeth may thank you 20 years from. Wonder when or if baseball is going to ban dip? They’ve talked about it, but apparently haven’t done so yet. It is banned in the minors.

Amazingly, this is not the first time this has ever happened. According to this article, Josh Ortmon, a pitcher with the Cleveland Indians, ended up on the Disabled List because he pulled a muscle throwing up after swallowing his chew.

marijuana, Teen smoking

Study: Kids who smoke pot do better in school than kids who just smoke cigarettes

March 30, 2014 Pepe Lepew

OK, NOT an endorsement for kids smoking dope, but an interesting study out of Canada. I think this study speaks more toward the attitudes toward dope and tobacco than the actual health effects of dope and tobacco.

According to this study, kids who just smoke pot have better grades and do better academically than kids who just smoke cigarettes. This study was done over the course of 30 years and to me the really interesting information that came out of it is that far fewer kids smoke cigarettes today than 30 years ago, while more kids smoke pot.

According to the article:

… and those that do (smoke cigarettes) make up a very “marginalized, vulnerable” population, says lead study author Michael Chaiton, assistant professor in epidemiology and public health policy.

This tells me that the most ostracised, least engaged kids, probably kids that will end up as dropouts, are the ones smoking cigarettes, while a lot of all-around average kids are smoking pot now, because even among kids, smoking is no longer seen as cool.

The article states this as much:

“Now there is a distinction between marijuana use and co-use with other substances, and it’s an indication of the changing social norms. So it’s not an absolute that they do better; it’s that social norms have changed and the population of people who use marijuana are more like the general population,” said Chaiton.

Another interesting stat — 92 percent of tobacco smokers also smoke dope, while only 25 percent of pot smokers also smoke tobacco. So, it’s really not an “either or” situation. Most of those cigarette smokers are also smoking pot. It has to do with attitudes toward cigarettes and pot … and what kind of kids are smoking cigarettes or pot in light of those attitudes.

Again, I’m not a fan of kids smoking dope, but they are going to smoke pot. Pot is becoming more and more socially acceptable for adults to the point where two states have legalised it, and I predict it will be legal in several other states within the next two or three years — and when it becomes more socially acceptable for adults to use it, it’s pretty tough to tell kids “none for you.” The attitudes toward pot are pretty similar to the attitudes toward beer.

Now, the study doesn’t say much about how kids smoke pot do academically versus kids who don’t use any drugs (one of the commenters on the article pointed this out.) The article contains this single sentence:

Marijuana users don’t outperform non-users, Chaiton says.

It would be nice to see more information than that in the study.

cigarette advertising, E-cig advertising, e-cigarette advertising

Tobacco Madness bracket — some truly insane tobacco and e-cig ads

March 29, 2014 Pepe Lepew 1 Comment

OK, I honestly thought I had seen every insane cigarette ad there was, but thanks to the Respiratory Health Association and Lungchigaco.org, I’ve found some more.

They’ve got a game going called “Tobacco Madness,” in which two insane cigarette ads are paired against one another, and you have to pick the one that is the most nuts. (It took me a while to get the links straightened out to this. The bracket is tiny, but if you click on this, it should be readable.)

Here’s some of the more insane ads blown up in a slideshow. Really demented stuff. I mean the ad tying e-cigs to breast cancer awareness is really the most twisted one I’ve seen:

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