Marketing Cigarettes to Children

To any who would go easy on the Tobacco Criminals. 

I am 75 years old.  I can recall young men and women standing on street corners handing out free packs of cigarettes.  Little 5 cigarette packs with pretty pictures and shiny cellophane wrap.  I watched all of my favorite entertainers light up and declare that this cigarette was, "So round, so firm, so free and easy on the draw", or "Not a cough in a car load", or "9 out of 10 doctors smoke...". 

Even Santa Claus put away his pipe and puffed on cigarettes.  And what do you think young, beautiful couples did after sex?  You got it.  They lit up.  And they ran through the flowers or rode over the range smoking lovely white cigarettes. 

We were saturated on the TV, in magazines, on bill boards and even in free cigarettes through the mail.  And when our government finally began to take weak, timid action, the Mighty Industry rose up and lied to us.  Cigarettes were almost made to look to be good for your health.  And the poor tobacco farmers came on TV telling us how that bad government was going to put them and their families out of business.  And we wept for them, as we lit up.   Murderers!  We wept for murderers. 

Nicotine is one of the hardest drugs to kick.  Especially when the entire media was wooing us.  I smoked from the time I was 13, was this an age when I should have been able to make sound adult determinations?, and I smoked off and on at the rate of at least a pack a day, until I was 56 years old.  It's been 19 years and I still could develop lung cancer as a result of the abuse I inflicted on my body. 

I hate the tobacco industry.  I am angry that our government, the folks we elect to protect us, have allowed this business to continue, even knowing that it promotes death. 

Shame on us all.  Especially shame on anyone who tells me that I alone was responsible for taking up that first cigarette. 

 

Curious Carl