Brain Washing by the tobacco industry. So this is sexy . . ?
Brain Washing by the tobacco industry. So this is sexy . . ?
One of our readers challenged the authenticity of the advertising posters in our brainwashing series. He just couldn’t believe the first one about doctors promoting Camel cigarettes (see TN, Mon. June 16). However, you’ll find authentication on page 89 of the March 17, 2007, edition of The Economist. In a review, An evil weed, The Economist writes:
“Cigarettes, overcame any lingering opposition to the pleasure they gave when American soldiers came to crave them during the first world war. (Tobacco companies gave away cigarettes to the troops by the truckload – Carl Dow, Editor.) War, says Brandt, was “a critical watershed in establishing the cigarette as a dominant product in the modern consumer culture.” Cigarettes, were (promoted as) sexy, and the companies poured money into advertising. (“More Doctors Smoke Camels”, claimed R.J. Reynolds in the 1940s.) By 1950 Americans smoked 350 billion cigarettes a year and the industry accounted for 3.5% of consumer spending on non-durables. The first 50 years of the “cigarette century” were a golden era for Big Tobacco.”
The paragraph is taken from a review of The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America. By Allan M. Brandt, Basic Books, 704 pages: $36.
Have a good reading weekend well seasoned with speculative thinking. See you Monday.
Looking forward.
Carl Dow
Editor and Publisher
True North Perspective
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