Tobacco Documents Online

BIADE Toledoy Ohio May 13, 1962 ritishReact ToCigarette-Cancer Report *~* *** **~ *** **~ Smokers Have Cut Down, But How Much And For How Long Remain To Be Seen By FERNAND FAUBER 'rae Bi .de'. EYtYPe.n co:re,vo.de.t. LONDON-0v er two months agoi,the Royal' College of Physicians is- sued a report pointing to e,yyar,etta smoking as' the mosYlikely, cause of aworld- wide increase in deaths from lung cancer: Since then, the British gov- ernmentt hasgiven~ itsfulls support to~ the publioitycampaign de- signed to make the conclu- sionsc of the report wide- ly known: G o,ve rn- menTt circu- lars spon- sored by the H lh M t - C C ea n Fernand istry have Fauber gone out to~ local health andl education authorities. Pr,sters h a v e come out warning smokers: "The more cigarettess youu smoke, the greaterr the risk7" Sales of the.physicians're-port "Smoking and Health'." rose about the 50;000~ mark in le.sss than six weeks, but' if 20,000 of these were sold in Britain, the majority' went to, the United Stateswhere anti+smoking drives are said to~have little effect. AMO1V~'a THE gnvern- ment'sbig; guns, one of the loudest, wass the speech in the Hbuse ofLords. byMinis- ter oFScience Lord Hailsham, whose targeUwas thetobaccoe industry. As the result of this attack, a wave off se!ling on the Lon- don Stock. Exdc,ange caused immense capital losses to them~gcr tubaccof::ms. Butt what off tnee average smoker'Is hee listening to the warning signalsT Is he paying any attention?. It maystiU be too~ early to judge long-term reactions. Certainly, the British,smoker has been exposed to a very large dose of anti-smokingp.ropaganda in, a relatSvelvshort period of time. So he must have heard the message. However, conflicting re- ports emanate from spokes- mem for thee big, cigarette manufacturers. Late ut March, the director of a chain of tobacconists' shops said'the over-all' drop in cigarette sales was nearly 8 per cent. In some districts the slump was 25 per cent.MEANWHILE', druggists reportedd that sales of anti- smoking preparations were at an allitime high. A month later, seven weekss after the publication of the report on "Smoking and Health,°tobacco producers and retailerssaid they were "not particularly perturbed" and added that it would be sometimeb.eforee theyy couldd find out if there had'been any change in the pattern of smoking. Now, in May, the sharehold- ers of one of Britain's top cig- arette manufacturing firms are told that the smoking scare which followed the re- port of the Royal College of Physicians has had "a ma- terial.effeetr' on sales. Again, the unanswered question is: "Will the effect be ll3sting?"' Much will dependd on gov- ernment action-iff any- against cigarette advertising. Already the commercial tele- vision network in Britainhas decided~ to begin its own, im quiry into the methods em- ployed by, cigarette and to- bacco advertisers. The aim.of the survey is to keep a d v er t.i s ing "legal, clean, honest and truthful." The more immediate purpose is to discover to what extentt television advertising encour- ages anincre.ase in smoking, particulhrlyy among young people. Answering a question~. in the House of Commons re- cently, Enoch Powell; min-ister of health, sai& thee gov- ernment aceeptsthe Royal College of.. Physicians' report which, he stated, "demon- strates authoritatively and crushingly the casual con- neetiombetween smoking and lung cancer and the more general hazards to health of smoking." It is possible that the gov- & ,~t W :r''t-`L_--~ .. . . ~. :. , Two British younr menn pufil on anti-srnokinp posters ernment may consider some measures to controllcigarette advertising and establish ex- perimental anti+smoking clin. ics. The medicali report', on "Smokingg and Health" ex- cluded pipes from the list of health ~ hazards. This may be why pipee sales have gone up sharplyy in Britain;, andd why a British dailyspeaks of "newly-recruited pipe-smok- ing eommuters. . self+ccn.sciouslystruggling tomanipu- tatebrand-newhriars while teadingg the morning paper i•tthe rush hour." FROM A SPOKESMAN' for a chainn of tobacco shops came this candid~ statement: "We know people wi:I s_re up cigarettes for a while, but we also know the sooner this grinding; of propaganda abates;, thee quicker the re- turn to smoking, -As.ee4tai Pre.. P\.ls ci`arett.s as they look at nsrapuF up in London. "There may bee a moral duty, concerned, andiall that, butthis.isour bread~andbut- ter. Wee have to look at itt from a business point of view." So it.t all boils . down ~~ to this final question: "Can the gov- ernment finance a long-tern: anti-smokingdrve?"' Or, in,the vrcrds of a:Mem- ber during the House of Com- mons debale: "Should not the Governmentbe doing: mo_eto~ discouragee yotmg- stcrs fro ;beeinr.ing te smoke? ~t not a farce to expeet~ local authorsties with only a.fewhundredi.pounds.a year, to eotlnteract the ll million pounds sterling ($30.8 million) spent.on tobacco ad- vertising every year, much of which is specially directed to persuading young people to smoke?"