Tobacco Documents Online

NATIONAL HtEUIEW. April 24, 1962 < ( No SrnQ kiag Allowed? The frantic gyrations of tobacco stocks on world security markets suggest' the following summary comments: 1. Smoking and Health, the new report of the British Royal Society of Physicians, repeats what has, been objectively established for some years: tha', there is a positive causal correlation between heavy cigarette smoking and several serious illnesses, in particular lung cancer. This correlation is statistical, not one-for-one. Heavy cigarette smoking is nott the sole cause of lung cancer or the other illnesses; nor does it invariably cause these in every individual. Nevertheless, the correlation is proved, and is strik- ing in degree: over a period of years heavy cigarette smokers are (as a group) fifteen or twenty times more likely than: non-smokers to get' lung cancer. 2. The attempt of the tobacco industry in this and other countries to hide, obscure or distort this fact, in~ spite of its continuing reconfirmation by one after another inquiry, is becoming an intolerable fraud on the public. 3. The exactcausal basis of the correlation is not known. It seems probable that the specific cancer- causing substance in cigarettes will be discovered; and that, when discovered, ways may be found to ' eliminate it. 4. The public has a right to know the truth about the relation between cigarettes and health; as an absolute minimum, not to be actively deceived con- cerning, it. 5. The illnesses correlated with cigarettes are not't contagious; they do not spread from one person to another as "epidemics."' They are therefore not a "public health problem" in the sane sense as small- pox, plague, tuberculosis or even~ the common cold. 5. ThPrefore, the question to-smoke-or-not-to-smoke . fundamentallyy a matter of individuali choice. If ar. individual chooses to risk shortening his life hy smoking cigarettes, that is his right: he will take other risks, in any case; if'~ not that one. The only public responsibility should be to make sure that he is not deliberately deceived as to~ the nature of his risk. 7. Let the truth be known, then, if necessary by stern disciplining of the tobacco industry's lobbying, advertising and public relations;, and let the citizens be left free. 8. Let us guard against the danger that if the trut'ri is played around' with much longer, we may find that the busybodies have one day saddled us wit'1 a new prohibition amendknent, this time on tobacco; and' another Prohibition Era, with its in- evitahly attendant bootlegging, ganestP-i^•-+ _. ;:ne and moral decay.