By Linda Stamato
Joe Camel is leading the way, ignoring prohibitions on advertising that are designed to warn those born after we learned the truth about how harmful smoking is.
As public health officials were meeting at the White House in 2014 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health–the landmark report linking smoking to lung cancer and other fatal diseases–the industry was preparing to fight back.
It’s still at it.
Just decades ago, smoking was so entrenched in our culture that even doctors routinely smoked. And the industry lulled us into its false comfort zone. Indeed, one-half of adult men in America smoked, and one-third of adult women did.
Then, after the report, the extensive press coverage of it, and litigation, smoking became odious, banned in places where it had been permitted and even encouraged. We were down to just over 10 percent of adults smoking; in 1965, as many as 43 percent did.
Smoking became a universally acknowledged health hazard.
The surgeon general’s report and the educational efforts that followed were convincing; lives were saved. The Journal of the American Medical Association, in its Jan. 7, 2014, issue on tobacco and tobacco control, contains a study that shows the report may have saved as many as eight million lives.
I’m probably one of them.
Yet upwards of 480,000 Americans still die prematurely due to smoking every year. Here are the most recent statistics on smoking trends compiled by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New research has found that smoking can lead to vision loss, tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, impaired immune function and cleft palates in children of women who smoke. We know about emphysema, of course, and heart disease. But now connections are clear between smoking and bladder, cervical, colorectal and liver cancers; diabetes; erectile dysfunction, and ectopic pregnancy.
There are potential links to breast cancer as well. So much for, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, former director of the CDC, stated it plainly:
“Tobacco is in a league of its own in terms of the sheer numbers and varieties of ways it kills and maims people.”
Nonetheless, the tobacco industry presses on, spending more than $22 million a day–yes, a day–to keep smokers smoking, and to attract new ones. It lies about its product and seems to care less that, as a result of a settlement, it must advertise that it “deliberately deceived the American public,” that “1200 people die every day from smoking,” and that “second hand smoke kills over 38,000 Americans a year.”
The industry calls these statements “forced confessions.”
The fact is, the industry seems willing to undertake any cost, and violate any agreement, to keep selling the poisonous weed. The public’s health is not a concern. Branding and market share, that’s the ticket!
The hubris is on full display in the July/August 2024 issue of Vanity Fair. “Dare to Discover” is the brazen headline. Those who view the full page ad are told they can “experience more at Camel.com,” including, I dared to discover, valuable coupons and other goodies.
I wonder how many viewers noticed that the ad violates the federal Food and Drug Administration’s requirements for cigarettes.
It does so in strikingly obvious ways. The Surgeon General Warning is small and at the bottom of the page. The FDA requires a larger size that is plain to see, at the top of the page. There are other specifics. Clearly, Joe Camel doesn’t care.
Does the FDA? The CDC? The Federal Trade Commission? I haven’t seen any indication of recalls or fines assessed against the camel.
What I see is that, as I suspected would happen all along, cigarettes are making a comeback.
WATCH LINDA STAMATO ON NJ PBS ‘STATE OF AFFAIRS’
Linda Stamato is a member of the nonprofit Corporation for New Jersey Local Media. She also serves as a commissioner on the Morristown Parking Authority, and a trustee of the Morristown and Morris Township Library Foundation. And she is Co-Director of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, where she is a Faculty Fellow.
Opinions expressed in commentaries are the authors’, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.
Some comments are shocking in terms of what they focus on—advertising—which was mentioned only because it shows Camel’s efforts to continue to try to attract people to smoking. The primary focus of the column was to state, once again, how seriously smoking affects the lives of those who smoke. It is not “an experience to discover” unless, of course, you want to die sooner than you would be likely to die otherwise. Those of us who started smoking before the Surgeon General’s Report did not have the benefit that contemporary Americans do: As I say, upwards of 480,000 Americans still die prematurely due to smoking every year. That is what smoking does.
New research, moreover, has found that smoking can lead to vision loss, tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, impaired immune function and cleft palates in children of women who smoke. We know about emphysema, of course, and heart disease. But now connections are clear between smoking and bladder, cervical, colorectal and liver cancers; diabetes; erectile dysfunction, and ectopic pregnancy.
There are potential links to breast cancer as well.
So, pay attention readers. Avoid the appeal that the manufacturers attempt to create for you and read the column at the final link, which, I gather, many of you did not read. The title is “Smoking is Making a Comeback”: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/style/smoking-cigarettes-comeback.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Hk4.mqFg.enDdCH5g12aJ&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Free enterprise has nothing to do with this. Cigarette companies are not prohibited from selling their noxious weed. And, obviously, no one is prohibited from smoking. Cigarettes are available. Restrictions on where you can smoke are in place, of course, to protect those who choose NOT to smoke. Government has been entrusted with a responsibility to look out for public health. If you don’t want to listen, fine. But, the stewards and stewardesses on flights with smokers, non-smokers themselves, for example, who died of lung disease saw their union sue for the harm and prevail. No more smoking on airplanes. Currently, casino workers in New Jersey, notwithstanding their petitioning to end smoking in casinos as neighboring states have done, can’t seem to get the NJ State legislators to value their lives more than they value the money pouring into their campaign coffers, so, they refuse to ban smoking. Well, too bad for the constantly exposed employees. They don’t have the choice most of you, readers, have; they are exposed whether they like it or not. Keeping their jobs depend upon accepting the terms; why they should have to expose their lungs and lives to the preferences of others is beyond my capacity to understand. To me, the government that regulates that industry, ought to be running interference for its workers. It is clearly not doing that.
Whatever happened to Free enterprise am I right.
Freedom of speech for corporations, or “commercial speech” is utterly important. If a Shareholder is invested well they expect the Executive Management to make profit. Of course law abiding. My 2 cents
“Public health is hardly a concern when there is money to be made.” Perhaps Linda can pen another wordy missive on this subject. I think I agree with her?
Linda, your contention is with product advertising and associated expenses. Your observation about the violation of current advertising rules is reasonable. Still, for example, Joe Camel the character was cancelled long ago in 1997.
Cigarettes are not making a comeback. Your federal statistics on smoking show the exact opposite. In fact the use of an isolated example in order to fit a personal suspicion reveals a bias. Exactly what comeback are you outlining for the community and the readers? Advertising has and always will be a cost of doing business. Does your article miss a chance to discuss the risk of e-cigarette use among youth? Back to your data, what has caused the large drop in smoking rates? Could it be the advertising rules?
Then the title of the article is misleading. More accurately it should be “While overall smoking has Decreased, Big Tabacco is increasing advertising expenditures.” Or something to that affect.
Yes, CC, you’re correct. Current smoking has declined from 20.9% (nearly 21 of every 100 adults) in 2005 to 11.5% (nearly 12 of every 100 adults) in 2021.1,2….. however, the comeback I refer to is just that: Big Tobacco is making a substantial effort to increase smoking; it hasn’t topped its high, yet, but it is aiming to (just look at its investment in advertising). And, of course, it is diversifying its offerings to increase variations on the smoking theme (with nicotine still front and center) and concentrating its pitch, heavily, in countries around the world.
Public health is hardly a concern when there is money to be made.
Thank you for “the nod” on my contributions; I appreciate it.
Hi Linda, Your articles and your work are fantastic. May we point something out to you? The C.D.C. stats you provide show a major decrease, not an increase. How can you then say “Cigarettes are making a deadly comeback”? Please respond. Thank you.
Thanks you, Linda. That was a well-stated response and I agree.
Thanks, Jeff. Maybe the warning is “a waste of ink,” but Big Tobacco spent a fortune trying to prevent the warnings, so their research told them that the warnings could hurt profits. Of course, you’re right, if smokers live longer, their share of healthcare costs diminishes but may not if the costs of treating their various illnesses are figured in. It’s hardly a wise policy to count on early deaths to save money. You’re right on the tax issue; states reap a fortune from cigarette taxes and, I imagine, because of that huge infusion of cash into the coffers tempers the likelihood of an aggressive state stance against smoking. Public health v state revenues, hardly an ideal trade-off. Awareness of the threats to health have, at least, placed limitations on spaces where smoking is permitted and does help the rest of us, the non-smokers…
I am an ardent non-smoker. I think it’s disgusting and the worst thing you can do to your health. I wish cigarette taxes were a lot higher. But I support smokers and their right to smoke – as long as I don’t have to breathe it. Studies have shown that cigarette taxes collected are a net positive. Others have said that healthcare costs for smokers are actually less because of their shorter life expectancy.
Either way, the surgeon general warning is a waste of ink. Everyone knows what the dangers of smoking are, and no amount of increased warnings are going to make anyone stop If someone wants to smoke, they aren’t going to check the pack first for any advice. And if they did happen to see it, it won’t stop ’em.