Tobacco, the crop that helped build a new nation, has been successfully transformed in modern society into something seen as dirty, scary and anachronistic. In many circumstances, smoking is socially unacceptable. Modern medicine unearthed the dangers of smoking, and a recalcitrant industry responded with denials and even lies to the U.S. Congress as it sought to maintain its hold on not just the habit of the smoker, but his imagination.
Tobacco History
While some prehistoric human remains unearthed on the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe have revealed minute concentrations of nicotine in the bones, anthropologists and paleobotanists agree that tobacco was not native to these areas. Tobacco first appeared in the paleobotanical record around 6000 BCE in the Americas, and by the dawn of the Common Era, it was widely used across North, Central and South America by indigenous tribes, according to William Brandon in his book, "The American Heritage Book of Indians." The first pictorial of smoking was discovered on a piece of Mayan pottery depicting a man smoking rolls of tobacco leaves tied by a string.
Smoking and the New World
Robert Pane, a monk who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second expedition, was the first European to write extensively on tobacco use in native New World populations in his book, "De Insularium Ribitus," in 1497. Continued exploration throughout the 16th century resulted in more tobacco flowing back to the old world, and by the time the Jamestown settlement took root in the New World in 1607, tobacco use in Europe had exploded, inspiring the first tobacco-related health debates and heavy import taxes.
Smoking on Television
Tobacco advertising on television was officially banned by the U.S. congress in 1969 after a 1967 provision of the Fairness Doctrine requiring television stations to air one anti-smoking public service announcement for every three cigarette commercials failed to produce the desired reduction in smoking rates. Prior to the ban, mainstream personalities like John Wayne, Jackie Gleason and even Fred Flintstone were cigarette pitchmen.
In the 1940s and early 1950s, television was an infant medium, so program funding usually came from one large sponsor, and it was often a cigarette company. This gave these top-line sponsors tremendous sway in the content of the programs, which led to frequent smoking during shows like "I Love Lucy" and "Topper." During intros or even within scenes, the stars of the shows were often written lines extolling the virtues of one brand or another.
Taxes
Governments tend to encourage or discourage behavior through the tax code. Desirable behaviors like developing a blighted area or driving a more fuel-efficient car are favored while smoking and other "sins" have throughout history been subject to additional taxes. In the modern era, the U.S. federal and state governments have used cigarette taxes to not only fund health care programs that are directly affected by smoking-related illnesses but also to discourage people from smoking, which would reduce the impact on health services to begin with.
Quitting
While the habit of smoking depended upon social contact to spread to new populations, smoking cessation seems to be linked to the same types of interpersonal connections. In a reversal of the peer-pressured individual who takes up smoking because a friend or family member does, groups of socially connected people tend to quit en masse, according to a study by Nicholas A. Christakis, M.D., that was published in "The New England Journal of Medicine" in May 2008.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Smoking and Tobacco Use
- Tobacco: The Tobacco Timeline
- Random History: The Long Tobacco Road
- "The New England Journal of Medicine"; The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network; Nicholas A. Christakis, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., and James H. Fowler, Ph.D
- Frank W. Baker: Tobacco on Television
