Feds and smokers fume over the right to inhale

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 24, 1995 | by Hank Cox, | Valerie Richardson

Puffing Through the Ages

The first people to savor tobacco smoke - like the first to eat Chesapeake Bay blue crabs -- are lost to history. All that is known for certain is that some Indian tribes in what is now Virginia and the Carolinas were fond of tobacco when the first colonists arrived, and before long the tobacco leaf was making inroads in Europe along with more practical commodities such as potatoes tomatoes and corn.

Even in those days, attitudes toward tobacco were decidedly mixed. Many enjoyed it. Sir Walter Raleigh had a smoke to calm his nerves on the way to the scaffold. But King James I of England described tobacco as "loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs." Pope Innocent X excommunicated smokers. None of these injunctions was particularly effective. Today there are an estimated 1 billion smokers around the globe.

In the modern world, media advertising helped portray smoking as a sign of sophistication or masculinity, depending on the target audience. By the 1950s, cigarette ads were a staple of the new television industry, and celebrities -- including future President Ronald Reagan -- gladly accepted money to endorse cigarettes. To the extent health concerns were a factor, it was in advertising campaigns that suggested doctors preferred certain brands over others. One memorable pitch suggested women would do their health a favor by reaching for a cigarette instead of candy.

A few lonely voices, such as the editors of Reader's Digest, issued bleak warnings about the potential side effects of smoking, but without credible scientific backing they had modest impact on consumer habits. Conscientious parents issued vague cautions to their children that smoking would stunt their growth, a claim generally greeted with ridicule.

The warnings gained credence in 1964 when Surgeon General Luther Terry first branded cigarettes a threat to public health and Congress required warning labels to be printed on each pack. By that time, the statistical link between heavy cigarette smoking and a variety of illnesses - including lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and emphysema - was irrefutable. In particular, the once- rare disease of lung cancer had become common, a phenomenon largely attributable to smoking. In response to growing public pressure, cigarette ads were banned from television and replaced with public- service antismoking messages.

Will Lobeline Nix `Nic Fits'?

Dr. E.D. Glover has tested dozens of antismoking products at his laboratory at the West Virginia University School of Medicine, and they all have one problem. They contain nicotine.

"The idea of giving nicotine to people trying to quit smoking is really strange," says Glover, whose Morgantown lab has tested more nicotine gums, pills and patches than any other in the world. "If you're treating an alcoholic, you don't say, `I'm going to put you on whiskey, then put you on wine, then beer.' If you're treating a heroin addict, you don't give them heroin, you give, them methadone. This is the only drug I've ever heard of where we keep giving it to people who are trying to stop using it."