The US was able to make smoking cigarettes seem uncool. Compared to a lot of other parts of the world, they seem to have made real progress in cutting tobacco use.
The chart begins in 1900. What happened just before then, to kick off the rise of cigarette smoking? The invention of the rolling machine, in 1880. Machine-rolled cigarettes made tobacco use much more convenient: you didn’t have to roll your own, fuss with a pipe, or deal with the mess of chewing tobacco or snuff. When you make consuming a product easier, people consume more.
The fastest increases in cigarette smoking were during WWI and WWII. What happened then? The US military issued cigarettes in rations. Why did they do that? For the same reason the German army issued amphetamines. Nicotine is a stimulant drug; it helps soldiers stay awake on watch and have more energy to fight.
Here’s another chart. This one is cancer death rates. Lung cancer deaths track smoking rates, but delayed by 20 years – the time the cancer takes to develop and spread in the body.
Smoking peaked and began to decline in the 1960s, before the adoption of anti-smoking laws; even before the 1970 ban on smoking ads on television. One possible conclusion is that the legislative changes were not the cause of the smoking decline, but rather part of a broader cultural response to the devastation of American elders by the cancerous effects of smoking.
The US was able to make smoking cigarettes seem uncool. Compared to a lot of other parts of the world, they seem to have made real progress in cutting tobacco use.
This chart of the rise and fall of cigarette smoking is kind of interesting.
The chart begins in 1900. What happened just before then, to kick off the rise of cigarette smoking? The invention of the rolling machine, in 1880. Machine-rolled cigarettes made tobacco use much more convenient: you didn’t have to roll your own, fuss with a pipe, or deal with the mess of chewing tobacco or snuff. When you make consuming a product easier, people consume more.
The fastest increases in cigarette smoking were during WWI and WWII. What happened then? The US military issued cigarettes in rations. Why did they do that? For the same reason the German army issued amphetamines. Nicotine is a stimulant drug; it helps soldiers stay awake on watch and have more energy to fight.
Here’s another chart. This one is cancer death rates. Lung cancer deaths track smoking rates, but delayed by 20 years – the time the cancer takes to develop and spread in the body.
Smoking peaked and began to decline in the 1960s, before the adoption of anti-smoking laws; even before the 1970 ban on smoking ads on television. One possible conclusion is that the legislative changes were not the cause of the smoking decline, but rather part of a broader cultural response to the devastation of American elders by the cancerous effects of smoking.
They are a step behind. All tobacco execs moved on to making food flavour addictive.