Smoking: So then, whose fault is it?

When we contemplate whose fault it is that smokers keep smoking, we have to explore what the tobacco companies knew, what they said they knew and what they did.

Because actions speak louder than words.

A previous post showed smokers continue smoking because they are addicted to nicotine, not because they enjoy it.

Then we showed that the tobacco companies hired a public relations company (Hill and Knowlton) to cast doubt on the scientific data that showed cigarette smoke causes cancer only to admit this was all fraud 45 years later.

In 1964, the Surgeon General issued a bombshell report linking cigarette smoking to a 70 percent increase in lung cancer mortality. It also reported that there was at least a 9 fold increase in lung cancer occurrence that increased with years of smoking and decreased with abstinence. The report did not comment on nicotine addiction.

In reaction to this, the tobacco companies felt fear as they were worried that their customers “would stop using if they could.” The key phrase there is “if they could.” So to insulate themselves against losing their customers, they needed to do something to keep people smoking.

Three years after the Surgeon General report, the tobacco company scientist’s data both confirms the link between smoking and lung cancer AND determines there is a minimum amount of nicotine that a person requires to become addicted. These revelations are the proverbial smoking gun confirming that the tobacco companies knew their product is harmful.

So the tobacco companies knew their product hurt people but didn’t want to stop selling them because it would put them out of business. They worried more about digging their own grave then the fact that their products were putting their customers into an early grave.

So what do they do? The engineer the cigarette to maximize the delivery of nicotine because as you recall, they know its both addictive and there is a minimum amount of nicotine needed to get a person addicted.

https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/press-releases/2014_06_23_report

The most straightforward change was to simply just increase the amount of nicotine in their tobacco. Adding menthol and other flavorings made smoke less irritating on lungs to ensure novice smokers kept puffing. Addition of ammonia compounds sped up the absorption of nicotine into the body, a process known in the drug culture as free-basing. The incorporation of a class of medications called bronchodilators, opens the lungs to assist in improving the amount of smoke that gets to the lungs. And finally, what is probably the most insidious thing they did was to add a ventilated filter. Colloquially thought to make cigarettes “safer,” they actually make a smoker inhale the carcinogenic smoke deeper and longer into their lungs.

In 1994, the executives of the major tobacco companies all swore to congress that they did not know cigarettes were addictive despite the fact their own scientists confirmed nicotine was addictive in 1967.

So, whose fault is it then?