{"id":1346,"date":"2014-01-07T14:33:58","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T21:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theloungeisback.wordpress.com\/?p=1346"},"modified":"2014-01-10T22:43:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-10T22:43:54","slug":"50th-anniversary-of-surgeon-generals-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=1346","title":{"rendered":"50th Anniversary of Surgeon General’s Report on smoking"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"mad-men-season-3-poster-11\"<\/a>
No more smoking at work or three-martini lunches, 1960s Don Draper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next week is the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking U.S. Surgeon General’s<\/a> report on cigarettes. This report was the result of more than a decade of studies and research into the growing suspicion of a connection between smoking and lung cancer.<\/p>\n

A lot of this is documented pretty well in an excellent book called “The Cigarette Century.”<\/a> The report was fought big time through political channels by the tobacco industry, trying to get it suppressed.<\/p>\n

The report issued by Surgeon General Luther Terry came out on Jan. 11, 1964, and along with the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with the tobacco industry, was a major turning point in the fight against smoking. Now, there was a highly official report, signed off by the U.S. Surgeon General, unequivocally with no subtleties — smoking causes lung cancer. And that cigarette filters did nothing to lower the risk.<\/p>\n

\"cigarette<\/a>
Remember these? These used to be EVERYWHERE!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Think about that for a moment. No if, ands or butts. There is no doubt. For years, the cigarette industry had been working feverishly to create “doubt” about the science (the same techniques are used by global warming and evolution denialists today — feed the “doubt.”).<\/p>\n

It was such a momentous report that it was actually released on a Saturday for fear that it would devastate the stock market.<\/p>\n

Think about 1964 … smoking ubiquitous on TV, in movies, in almost every workplace. Ashtrays jammed with cigarettes in hotel lobbies, restaurants, work desks, cars, everywhere. There were no smokefree areas, not in restaurants, not in airplanes, not even in hospitals. The smell was everywhere. Cigarettes sold in vending machines.<\/p>\n

My how times have changed since 1964. But, it changed slowly.<\/p>\n

A few years after the report, the warnings arrived on packs of cigarettes.<\/p>\n

You would have thought this would have been the end of the tobacco industry with two or three years, but no, incredibly, smoking continued to thrive and smoking rates didn’t really start to drop until the 70s, and then didn’t really drop all that dramatically until the 80s, nearly 20 years later.<\/p>\n

Why? The industry fought back. Afterward, the tobacco industry poured more money than ever into its PR machine and its advertising, trying to counteract the influence of the report. Advertising was aimed at women with a series of new cigarettes marketed specifically for women. Then, came Joe Camel, enticing what the industry called “new smokers” (The industry’s euphemism for teen smokers) by making smoking look more cool than ever. And for a time, they were successful.<\/p>\n

\"luther<\/a>
Luther Terry and his groundbreaking report<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The smoking rate was about 43 percent in 196<\/a>4 (and more than 50 percent for men). After the Surgeon General’s report came out, the smoking rate for women and teenagers actually went up for several years, but finally started to drop in the 70s. Around this time, cigarette ads were banned from TV and vending machines disappeared (They were finally banned by the FDA in 2010.). The dramatic drop-off was between 1970 and 1980, with a second, less dramatic drop-off after 2000. From 1990 to 2000, the smoking rate remained stubbornly persistent, dropping only from 25.5 percent to 23.3 percent (the result of a higher teen smoking rate than the 60s and 70s … thanks Joe Camel). Today, the smoking rate is about 19 percent.<\/p>\n

What’s more. The attitudes toward smoking changed — dramatically. Smoking is no longer seen by society as “cool” or “hip.” Now, it’s seen as a dirty habit, something to be embarrassed about. Smokes are assigned to the alleys outside bars, in all kinds of weather. It’s no longer “fun” to smoke.<\/p>\n

It took about 40 years to cut the smoking rate in half, in other words. Today, it is roughly about 44 percent of what it was in 1964. Just as importantly, but not talked about enough, is the amount of smoking has gone down because very few workplaces allow smoking any longer. There are very few 2- and 3-pack-a-day smokers today, compared to 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

Jan. 11, 1964. The date the tide began to turn against the tobacco industry. It was the first major victory against the industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next week is the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking U.S. Surgeon General’s report on cigarettes. This report was the result of more than a decade of studies and research into the growing suspicion of a connection between smoking and lung cancer. A lot of this is documented pretty well in an excellent book called “The … Continue reading 50th Anniversary of Surgeon General’s Report on smoking<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[57,64,72,76],"tags":[194],"class_list":["post-1346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smoking-2","category-surgeon-general","category-tobacco-in-history","category-warning-labels","tag-u-s-surgeon-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/mad-men-season-3-poster-11.jpg?fit=2316%2C1814&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-lI","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1949,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=1949","url_meta":{"origin":1346,"position":0},"title":"U.S. Senators urge drug store chains, WalMart to join CVS in banning tobacco products","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"February 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In response to CVS' recent decision to halt tobacco sales, eight U.S. Senators --Tom Harkin (D-IOWA), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Jack Reed (D-RI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) -- wrote two other major chains asking them to follow CVS' lead.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CVS Pharmacy"","block_context":{"text":"CVS Pharmacy","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=223"},"img":{"alt_text":"walgreens","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/walgreens.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1844,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=1844","url_meta":{"origin":1346,"position":1},"title":"More 50-year anniversary stories: Smoking has killed 20 million people since 1964","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"January 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Another story on the 50-year anniversary of the Surgeon General's, this one from Think Progress. The RawStory article touched on this, but this article deals with it more directly: Since the 1964 landmark Surgeon General's report, more than 20 million people in the U.S. have died as a result of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Secondhand smoke"","block_context":{"text":"Secondhand smoke","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=56"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/smoking-638x425.jpg?fit=638%2C425&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/smoking-638x425.jpg?fit=638%2C425&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/smoking-638x425.jpg?fit=638%2C425&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2376,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=2376","url_meta":{"origin":1346,"position":2},"title":"National Geographic graphic on smoking","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"July 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In the August 2014 National Geographic, the magazine does an interesting full-page graphic on the rise and decline of smoking, breaking down the smoking rate into \"cigarettes per day.\" (Click on the graphic to see it full size, I couldn't find it on the Internet anywhere.) The height of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tobacco in history"","block_context":{"text":"tobacco in history","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=72"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/smoking-graphic.jpg?fit=790%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/smoking-graphic.jpg?fit=790%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/smoking-graphic.jpg?fit=790%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/smoking-graphic.jpg?fit=790%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1838,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=1838","url_meta":{"origin":1346,"position":3},"title":"More 50-year anniversary stories: Cigarettes do more than cause lung cancer","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"January 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Lots of news outlets are doing 50-year anniversary stories on the Surgeon General's landmark report. I'm posting links to a couple of them. This one is from RawStory (Reprinted from a French news service -- thanks to Haruko for the link and there she is posting away and a bunch\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "smoking"","block_context":{"text":"smoking","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=57"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/A-woman-smokes-a-cigarette-in-the-pedestrian-plaza-located-in-Times-Square-AFP.jpg?fit=615%2C345&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/A-woman-smokes-a-cigarette-in-the-pedestrian-plaza-located-in-Times-Square-AFP.jpg?fit=615%2C345&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/A-woman-smokes-a-cigarette-in-the-pedestrian-plaza-located-in-Times-Square-AFP.jpg?fit=615%2C345&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":81,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=81","url_meta":{"origin":1346,"position":4},"title":"Surgeon General new report on smoking … cigarettes are bad, M’kay","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"December 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, what has gotten a lot of press from a truly extensive Surgeon General's report on cigarettes released yesterday is a conclusion that \"there is no safe level of cigarette smoke.\" The media has turned this into \"just one cigarette can kill you.\" Unfortunately, the report does contain a passage\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Lung cancer"","block_context":{"text":"Lung cancer","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=35"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/smoking-effects.jpg?fit=795%2C521&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/smoking-effects.jpg?fit=795%2C521&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/smoking-effects.jpg?fit=795%2C521&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/smoking-effects.jpg?fit=795%2C521&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1707,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=1707","url_meta":{"origin":1346,"position":5},"title":"NBC, CNN go all out on smoking this weekend","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"January 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"For the 50th anniversary of the Surgeon General's watershed report on smoking and lung cancer, both NBC News and CNN had for a time last weekend smoking as their top stories. Imagine my excitement seeing cigarette smoking dominating the top of both websites with so many other stories going on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "cigarettes"","block_context":{"text":"cigarettes","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=18"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/nbc-front-page.jpg?fit=1200%2C705&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/nbc-front-page.jpg?fit=1200%2C705&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/nbc-front-page.jpg?fit=1200%2C705&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/nbc-front-page.jpg?fit=1200%2C705&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/nbc-front-page.jpg?fit=1200%2C705&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1346"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}