Tobacco Documents Online

.> ~_=-". T XR~ ~ KENTUCKY ov 2 N, NEWSCLIP INCORPORATE.D 3111 Evergreen Road 14fIDDI,ETOWN,KY: 40243 (Ky. Clipping Service) Kentucky Edition Tennessean Nashvilie, Tenn. Circulation: 141,822 (Sunday: 228,330) .,~ - - ~..aS THE NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN, Sunday„ Aug. 11, 1968 7.1) ~ Modern Medicine : Cigarette Industry Wants You-Youth! By PETER J. STEINCROHN, M.D. T HAVE' never run for politi- cal cal office, but if I weree rnmning now I wouldn't have. a chance. My recurrent dla- Cribes a g a i n s t smoking by youngsters woul& put me at the bottom of the polls. At times I know how po- liticians or preachers must' feel: frustrated at the inef- fectiveness of their repeated speeches and sermons. Young- sters will stop and look but they won't listen. You tell them not to start smoking or they may get' hooked for life. They see you but do~ not hear you. The reason is evident. They have heard "don't" so much in their young lives that their ear apparatus doesn't trans- late the familiar, repeated admonitions iln t o actuality. They brush it off as just so much ol& fuddy-duddy warn- ings. Bored Before Speech For this reason; I am not going to struggle to the podi- 4 --- - um to deliver another lecture against smoking. Assuming that I have a youthful! audi4. ence, chances are they are bored before I speak, often before they hear me say, "Better quit before you be- gin." Therefore, I, turn over today's words of wisdom to another. Recently I read some ex- cerpts from a talk to stu- dents of Phiilips Academy, Andover, Mass., by Frank P. Foster, M.D., assistant cllni- cal professor of medicine, Boston Universit'y. I hope a few thousand of my younger readers will give him a chance: "Early warnings of dam- age from cigarette smoking are so subtle as to be al- most entirely m i s s e d or ignored by persons involved. They put up with a: chronic cough; a drizzly nose and throat, a gravel voice and a bird cage mouth. The gradr ual increase in cough and spitting, the sipw decline in wind and a little bit duller feeling in the head from day to day are met with~ genial equanimity until the grow- ing cancer, failing heart and destruction of lung tissue are all t'oo solid an established fact. Fool{s Solution "`It1L smoke until I get into trouble and then I'll quit, and be okay. This is truly a fool's solution, sinde the worst harm from smoking gives no alarm until it is far too late to make a recovery. This is the . se- cret of the danger. The smok- er who waits for am unmis- takable warning has, for the most part, waited too long. "And why is extra pressure put on you to start smoking by advertising? To put it in the cruelest possible way, each of you, like a slave on the block many years a g o. is worth up to a cool $8,000, the amount the privilege of smok- ing will cost' you in a llfetime, provided you: live to a reason- able age. "To get you contributing im good style, the best in U.S. advertising skills are concen- trated on you, and to succeed, they use an interesting theme. The gimmick? You guessed it. Smoking makes you manly, not old-manly: Fliers, cow- b o y s, hunters, professional athletes, y o u n g executives,, great lovers and even beauti- ful girls. Bait "But you seldom if ever see a brand adverti'sed by show- ing grandma or grandpa light- ing up, because the emphasis is on you, not grandpa or even dad. They are hooked now or never will start. The bait is for youL" Comment: B a I t? That's what the good doctor said in his excellent talk. Did 7eu listen? Then don't get hooked. Don't be a poor fish. Dr. Steincrohn's b o o'e I e t "Acne: A Family Problem," will be mailed to you for a stamped„ self-addressed en- velope and 25 cents. Address Dr. Steincrohn, in care of this newspaper. sV (9)