During the 1950’s, cigarettes were
marketed as objects of status—they were cool, elegant, hip, and even healthy.
There would be ads in magazines or on the radio that stated how a certain brand
of cigarettes, say Luckies or Philip Morris, were “doctor-recommended.” But not
even were they just recommended…cigarettes were even prescribed as if
they were safe for people. And then you get to Hollywood and its
representations of cigarettes. Hollywood icons and glamour stars were
practically always seen with a cigarette in hand… think Humphrey Bogart and how
that cigarette just enhanced his suave and mysterious “manhood” or that
beautifully sophisticated, long cigarette that Audrey Hepburn holds in the
iconic Breakfast at Tiffany’s photo.
Then, just consider the quotidian experiences of people back in 50’s or
60’s… the “cool” kids would smoke, and the smoke that billowed from the cigs in
their hands brought out some je ne sais quoi… some sense of rebellion while it
also represented some rite of passage into “grown up land.”
Fast forward to 1970’s and beyond:
smoking is not cool. Cigarette packs now have, albeit possibly in not
the most noticeable manner, the Surgeon General’s health warning regarding the
smoking of cigarettes (starting in 1970). Then we get American Cancer Society’s
stickers and shirts that say: “Kiss me! I don’t smoke!” In addition, many
countries even blatantly brandish on their cigarette packs unattractive photos
of the effects that chronic smoking will wreak on an individual. And public
education got involved when elementary schools started ingraining into their
students the whole “say no to drugs and tobacco” slogan while handing out pins
and stickers of pride for being tobacco- and drug-free (yet, one must say, a
small feat being that they are most 11 years old).
All this boils down to how
cigarettes went from being something to flaunt to something that would
constitute an addiction. But this was not a case of self-interest and
money necessarily creating an addiction (such as in the example read in class
about female Viagra); if anything, self-interest and money was what created the
market for cigarettes. It was research and knowledge about what
cigarettes could cause, such as lung cancer, that led it to become something
unfavorable and thus an addiction. It was reality that hit… the understanding
about nicotine along whatever else is even in the cigarettes that caused this
shift in public perception and awareness that cigarettes weren’t actually hip
but harmful. Thus, what we would now
consider an addiction was what before was just an innocuous fad, though one
that persisted.
I think the ways in which the societal views of cigarettes has changed in the past 60 years is very interesting. I think this has also been true with cocaine (powdered vs crack) and the types of people who get associated with each. I think weed is another example of something that society has more recently changed their views upon. I don't know that these changes or differences in societal views of certain substances always affect the amount substances are used but it definitely can. It's always interesting how politicians, marketing schemes, and cultural views and practices can affect how society's view of different substances changes overtime.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that I thought of when I read through this (excellent) blog post was that if smoking didn't give a bunch of people lung cancer (and therefore cause them to rack up huge medical bills) would we care if people were addicted to nicotine. To my knowledge, you cant get arrested for driving while on nicotine, and it doesn't seem to raise anyones propensity of getting in a bar fight. In other words, is addiction only considered a societal ill when the taxpayer (or worse, large insurance companies) have to pick up the tab?
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