Tobacco Documents Online

Volume V, Number 2 ALL SEGMENTS OF THE U. S. TOBACCO ECONOMY on May 16-19 will partici- pate at Jamestown, Virginia in the 350th Anniversary Celebration of John Rolfe's first tobacco crop. A tablet, erected in 1926 by The Tobacco Association of the United States, on a wall of the historic Jamestown Church-Tower, modestly tells of Rolfe's accomplishments: "His introduction of the cultivation of tobacco in 1612 and his making the first shipment of tobacco from Virginia to England, made him the pioneer of a great industry which has profoundly affected the economic, social and business history of our country. " 'NO ONE STAPLE OR RESOURCE EVER PLAYED a more significant role in the history of any State or Nation, " Melvin Herndon wrote in Tobacco in Colonial Vir- ginia. "The growth of the Virginia Colony, as it extended beyond the limits of Jamestown, was governed, and hastened by the quest for additional virgin soil in which to grow this 'golden weed' ... Without tobacco, the development of Virginia might have been retarded 200 years." VIRGINIA EXPORTED SOME 40, 000 POUNDS of tobacco in 1620 when the Puritans touched at Plymouth Rock. Scarcely nine years later, Virginia shipped over 1, 500, 000 pounds of tobacco to England. This spectacular growth of tobacco was due to peace that came from Rolfe's marriage in 1614 to Pocahontas, daughter of Emperor Powhatan. Baptized Rebecca, she later was entertained as royalty by King James I. Surviving this union was one son, Thomas, "the great American Adam" whose blood is perpetuated in many American and British families. TOBACCO ALWAYS HAS MADE IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS to the U. S. foreign exchange resources, George V. Allen, President and Executive Director of The Tobacco Institute, Inc., told a House Ways and Means Committee in supporting the current proposed Trade Expansion Act (H.R. 9900). Our present World Trade Agreements expire June 30. Allen's statement was made in association with eight major tobacco organizations: Tobacco Associates, Inc., Burley & Dark Leaf To- bacco Export Association, National Cigar Leaf Tobacco Association, Leaf Tobacco Exporters Association, Tobacco Association of the United States, Shade Tobacco Growers Association of Connecticut Valley, Florida-Georgia Cigar Leaf Tobacco Association, and The Tobacco Institute, Inc.

ABOUT 30% OF THE ENTIRE U. S. TOBACCO CROP is exported today, said Allen. About 40% of the flue-cured tobacco crop is sold abroad. Tobacco is the fourth mon largest export crop from the nation, he said. While development of a Common Market in Europe could result in a serious drop in U. S. tobacco exports, Allen said that the Common Market presents "an important opportunity to expand Ameri- can exports in leaf and manufactured products if tariff rates and other restrictions on our products can be materially reduced." 'IF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES GRANTED TO AMERICAN TOBACCO and tobacco products the same competitive opportunity that the United States grants to Volks- wagens, Renaults and other automobiles from Europe, American tobacco exports to Europe would increase dramatically," said Allen, who is chairman of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and former career diplomat and former USIA head. TAXES ON EVERY U. S. PACKAGE OF CIGARETTES are more than four times what the tobacco farmer receives, said Fred S. Royster, President of the Tobacco Tax Council. "Few appreciate how exorbitantly tobacco is taxed. I believe it is time that tobacco users and farmers resist by all possible measures efforts to in- creas e tobacco taxes. 'ABOUT $3.1 BILLION WAS COLLECTED LAST YEAR in tobacco taxes by all governmental collecting agencies--national, state, and local," Royster said. "That total is more than the 1963 fiscal needs of the National Aeronautics & Space Ad- ministration and we would have enough left over to buy 40 Atlas missiles. That total could finance for one year the health and hospital program of every State, with enough left over to build 500 hospitals costing $1 million each," Royster said. TOBACCO FARMERS DURING THE PAST DECADE have learned to expect each Spring some startling statements on smoking and health as some health organiza- tions prepare to launch their annual drives for funds. While lacking in new and creditable medical or clinical evidence, these statements are clothed in startling C statistics that shock halcyon copy editors into writing scare headlines. BUT THE MOST RECENT ACTIVITY AGAINST tobacco broke in March with the suddenness of a Spring thundershower. It provoked rumblings and oratory in Brit- ish and Italian Parliaments, as well as the U. S. Congress. Setting off the latest anti-tobacco rumble was the report of a committee of British Royal College of Physicians. While revealing no new evidence in the anti-tobacco campaign, the report called upon the Government to increase tobacco taxes, restrict tobacco advertising, monitor tobacco sales to minors; establish clinics to educate the public on smoking "hazards, " and provide anti-smoking pills to avoid nicotine "addiction. " THIS WAS A NEW TURN. IT MARKED THE FIRST TIME the British Government had taken official cognizance of the hoary charges of the anti-tobacco fanatics. British Health Minister Enoch Powell told Members of Commons that the report "demonstrates authoritatively and crushingly" the dangers of cigarettes. British Government officials circulated 400, 000 posters citing smoking dangers. Anti- w ~ ~

smoking clinics were held in Bristol, London, Manchester and other areas. Major British tobacco firms decided not to make any TV announcements until after 9 P.M., children's bedtime. CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER SELWYN LLOYD refused to include an increase in tobacco taxes in new budget proposals before Commons. Britain now levies a 47-cent tax on a pack of 20 cigarettes, which retail for 63~. Lloyd said that a "further penal increase would mean that smoking, even in moderation, would be taken quite out of the reach of many people of limited means--I am not prepared to do that. " C ITALY, WHICH MAINTAINS A TOBACCO MONOPOLY, passed a law forbidding ad- vertising of cigarette and other tobacco products. Penalty would be a fine from $32 to $320. For several years there had been an advertising ban on Italian-made cigarettes. There were reports that the real reason behind the new Italian law was to protect the State monopoly. The Spring madness of attacking tobacco spread to Denmark where there were outcries for curbs on tobacco sales. LEADERS IN THE U. S. TOBACCO ECONOMY quickly challenged the RCP conclu- sions. Noting many inconsistencies in the report, Tobacco Institute President Allen declared, "The authors ignore a large amount of important research into many other factors that are being studied. These include viruses, environment, diet, previous illnesses and the basic difference between individuals- -whether they are smokers or not." Pointing out that the smoking and lung cancer causa- tion theory is still a theory, according to Dr. Clarence C. Little, scientific director of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee. "The causes or cause of lung cancer are still unknown, " Dr. Little emphasized. PLEADING FOR MORE BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Dr. Milton B. Rosenblatt, of New York City, writing in the American Medical Association Journal April 7th issue, says "statistical surveys" belittle a need for more medical work. He de- plores use of statistics as a solution for a 150-year-old problem. Lung cancer, he says, is predominantly a male disease, and the ratio of male victims is much larger "despite the prodigious increase" of women smokers. Dr. Rosenblatt re- minds that lung cancer "occurs in areas where cigarette smoking is virtually unknown. " SOME RUNOVERS AT PRESS DEADLINE: Being overweight, as the result of over- eating and the lack of physical exercise, is a far bigger risk to Britons than smoking, according to Chapman Pincher, London Express Service correspondent of the Columbus- (Ohio) Citizen-Journal. -"The number of premature deaths from coronary thrombosis in Britain is two and one half times greater than those attri- buted to lung cancer, " Pincher says. REPRODUCTION IS PERMITTED

BUT A FEW LAWMAKERS IN THE U. S. CONGRESS picked the time as ripe to revive old legislative proposals. Senator Maurine B. Neuberger, Democrat from Oregon, along with six Democratic colleagues, introduced SJR 174, which would ask the President to form a National Commission on Tobacco and Health. The first whereas assumes a conclusion toward which the research is to be directed, and the first portion of the resolution directs the President to act before the study has been completed. (Editor's Note: This resolution is similar to one recom- mended by the American Cancer Society at its January, 1960 board meeting. ) D D.. .l n IL-: ra r41. ...- t« +i, o R«...,.. N V ;., S-T R 1(1Q 1(1 nGrl• rd~LL r>. • r LiLV, LLLI•1L-4Gr Lll 1\ep41JLL~.al L.alL 11 oli! 4aaG a.+a v-, _ • a•, ... __• + ~ I- ~ resurrected in identical language a two-year-old bill requiring all cigarettes to carry a nicotine-and-tar content label. American Cancer Society News Release Says: Human ~Virus Causes Cancer To Be Produced In Lungs Of Non-Smoking Animals Human virus (adenovirus, type #12) produced lung cancers in 800o to 90afo of experimental hamsters, according to an American Cancer Society netvs service release and news stories by the Associated Press and United Press International distributed to afternoon clients on April 13. Giving new support to a possible role of viruses in causing human cancer was a report of a medical team of Baylor's Dr. John J. Trentin and Dr. Yoshiro Yabe and University of Texas' Dr. Grant Taylor. The paper, read before an American Association for Cancer Research meeting at Atlantic City, N. J., told of work being done with U. S. Army scien- tists at Fort Dix, N. J. and Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The Texas researchers said the human adenovirus is of a kind responsible f or some respiratory diseases but sharply di f f ers f rom agents believed to cause the common cold. The Trentin research may be the first of several steps to a vaccine for adenovirus-caused cancers, if they do exist in humans, the release said.