WI: Big Tobacco wasn't so shady

I think one of the issues here thats not been addressed (aside from the excellent points made by @CalBear ) is that smoking was an accepted 'social norm' until relatively recently - even by the start of the 1990s 32% of men smoked regularly.^ This had dropped from 45% in 1977. Despite the combination of official warnings, price increases, and the activities of the anti- smoking lobby, a national survey in 1985 found that 31% of people thought that tobacco was either ‘not dangerous at all’ or ‘OK if you know how to use it’. In addition to this, the reductions in the prevalence of smoking between 1977 and 1995 (down to 27%) resulted mainly from people quitting smoking rather than from fewer people taking it up.

So just because the companies "are upfront earlier", doesn't mean its going to automatically change prevailing social trends. So anyhow, have a Winfield.

^Australian figures.
My mom (born in 1961) and her social circle never smoked and always knew the dangers of smoking.
 
My mom (born in 1961) and her social circle never smoked and always knew the dangers of smoking.
So couple of things. Smoking varies from country to country, and then those rates are heavily influenced by different socio-economic and geographic characteristics of the population. On the same data I was quoting earlier, women were considerably less likely to be smokers in 1977 (45% vs 29%) for men/women respectively.

WHO data shows that in most nations, regardless of development or location, women smoke less or considerably less than men. WHO data link
 
So couple of things. Smoking varies from country to country, and then those rates are heavily influenced by different socio-economic and geographic characteristics of the population. On the same data I was quoting earlier, women were considerably less likely to be smokers in 1977 (45% vs 29%) for men/women respectively.

WHO data shows that in most nations, regardless of development or location, women smoke less or considerably less than men. WHO data link
All true, but I recall reading that smoking rates have steadily declined ever since the Surgeon General's Report of 1964 in all age groups.

I wonder: Why do men always have higher smoking rates than women?
 
I guess from a marketing perspective, its probably best to say nothing rather than launch a campaign that bashes your own product.
It's one thing to stay quiet. Instead of just staying quiet, they claimed that "nicotine is not addictive", a statement that any smoker or ex-smoker could testify against.
 
I think one of the issues here thats not been addressed (aside from the excellent points made by @CalBear ) is that smoking was an accepted 'social norm' until relatively recently - even by the start of the 1990s 32% of men smoked regularly.^ This had dropped from 45% in 1977. Despite the combination of official warnings, price increases, and the activities of the anti- smoking lobby, a national survey in 1985 found that 31% of people thought that tobacco was either ‘not dangerous at all’ or ‘OK if you know how to use it’. In addition to this, the reductions in the prevalence of smoking between 1977 and 1995 (down to 27%) resulted mainly from people quitting smoking rather than from fewer people taking it up.

So just because the companies "are upfront earlier", doesn't mean its going to automatically change prevailing social trends. So anyhow, have a Winfield.

^Australian figures.

Yeah I was gonna touch on that, it was part of the social fabric of modern Western culture as something "cool, rebellious or (ironically) sophisticated".

It's one thing to stay quiet. Instead of just staying quiet, they claimed that "nicotine is not addictive", a statement that any smoker or ex-smoker could testify against.

I agree that's a pretty shitty stance to take, if they hadn't tried denying it's negative attributes, I guess there might be a decrease in people picking it up? They would never EVER come out by themselves and own up to the detrimental health effects unless prompted by some outside force or social pressure (as they inevitably did)

I wonder: Why do men always have higher smoking rates than women?

I feel men are the subject in a lot of passive imagery of smoking within Western media (when I say media I mean films, games, TV etc). Within this medium, smoking is what badasses do after killing a field of bad guys, or something a young wild party kid does after sex and that is still a trope in media today. I had a buddy who did contract work setting up marquees and what not for Philip Morris and he met with their "marketing team" (they had some name to disguise their purpose, "Product Movement" or something). They basically now rely on smoking's well established image as being something "cool" or "luxurious" to sell.
 
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It's one thing to stay quiet. . .
I think there’s at least two things in favor that this should have been much more the norm for big tobacco companies: risk aversion and sophistication about persuasion.

On the first, when you riding high like ‘Marlboro’ and when you’re really more of an oligopoly than a competitive business, why rock the boat and do risky things more likely to hurt you than help you?

And on the second . . . look, people know a lot about persuasion. For example, a defense attorney knows if there are bad facts, it’s a heck of a lot better for him or her to be the one to tell the jury than for the prosecuting attorney to tell the jury. So, why would tobacco companies make statements that are over-claims and over-statements and almost ridiculous on their face? On thinking about it, no, it doesn’t seem like a smart move on the part of tobacco companies.
 
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Yeah I was gonna touch on that, it was part of the social fabric of modern Western culture as something "cool, rebellious or (ironically) sophisticated".
That and there was (some would argue still is) a social/socialisation aspect to the act, with the cool/rebel/sophisticated argument more appropriate for the youth.

All true, but I recall reading that smoking rates have steadily declined ever since the Surgeon General's Report of 1964 in all age groups.
That may be one cause, but there are also many other factors including e-cigarettes, and other "non-cigarette tobacco products", increasing levels of education (better educated populations smoke less), general health awareness, changing social (rather than a business) factors including the social stigma, the banning of smoking in many places both indoor and outdoor, and prohibitive cost increases.
 
I think one of the issues here thats not been addressed (aside from the excellent points made by @CalBear ) is that smoking was an accepted 'social norm' until relatively recently - even by the start of the 1990s 32% of men smoked regularly.^ This had dropped from 45% in 1977. Despite the combination of official warnings, price increases, and the activities of the anti- smoking lobby, a national survey in 1985 found that 31% of people thought that tobacco was either ‘not dangerous at all’ or ‘OK if you know how to use it’. In addition to this, the reductions in the prevalence of smoking between 1977 and 1995 (down to 27%) resulted mainly from people quitting smoking rather than from fewer people taking it up.

So just because the companies "are upfront earlier", doesn't mean its going to automatically change prevailing social trends. So anyhow, have a Winfield.

^Australian figures.

My mom (born in 1961) and her social circle never smoked and always knew the dangers of smoking.

A big part of the psychology of smoking is that in general if you start decades before you see any negative effects and alot of human beings are really, really bad at thinking long term especially when it come to denying themselves something they like doing now. (Even more so when you consider the age bracket most smokers start in)!

So yep some always knew it was dangerous, but many looked for excuses why it wasn't or wouldn't be for them in particular. The very long term health awareness campaign other the last few decades wasn't so much to reveal to people that shock horror smoking was bad for you but more to keep reinforcing the message in order to provide less and less wiggle room for arguing to yourself that for you it would be OK.

This is also why quite quickly the Tobacco industry's main pushback against the health campaign wasn't to deny it totally but to not discuss it or cast doubt on it enough to allow their customers enough mental wriggle room to justify keeping on smoking.


Maybe really early on in the industry it could be argued that didn't know about the damage, but concerns were raised pretty quickly by the Medical community (just on abstract correlation alone, but it was complicated by the long term nature of it all) even if it took longer for a concerted effort to prove it and than even longer to prove it comprehensively.
 
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Then they'd be sued into oblivion, because they would be admitting their product is dangerous. And since the 50s (and before, but it ramped up in the 50s), the industry had spent millions on trying to convince everyone from the public to the medical community that smoking wasn't dangerous, even though their own internal studies time and time again confirmed the studies which showed the dangers of smoking.

This is the same reason why they couldn't market a "safer cigarette", since that would imply the product they were selling before was dangerous. The tobacco industry was afraid of litigation for decades before it became a reality, and this prevented them from pursuing options like e-cigarettes, which actually are safer "cigarettes". Incidentally, e-cigs were regulated under a different set of rules than cigarettes, cigars, etc. which prevented other companies from marketing them, since nicotine was considered a dangerous drug, even though it isn't the nicotine which is causing the lung cancers, heart diseases, etc. (outside of the addiction it causes).

Couldn't they have just said, "You knew what you were getting into when you started"?

That's one of the biggest arguments they use in court cases, and they've actually lost several times using that argument since a common counter-argument is that people actually didn't know, given the information available to them. Even after the Surgeon General's report, many Americans weren't sure that tobacco was actually dangerous, in large part due to the campaigns Big Tobacco was behind which repeatedly stated that "it isn't proven" that smoking causes cancer, heart disease, etc. It's a sort of false neutrality which psychologically appeals to a lot of people, hence why controversial groups from creationists to the oil industry have used the same tactic.
 
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That's one of the biggest arguments they use in court cases, and they've actually lost several times using that argument since a common counter-argument is that people actually didn't know, given the information available to them. Even after the Surgeon General's report, many Americans weren't sure that tobacco was actually dangerous, in large part due to the campaigns Big Tobacco was behind which repeatedly stated that "it isn't proven" that smoking causes cancer, heart disease, etc. It's a sort of false neutrality which psychologically appeals to a lot of people, hence why controversial groups from creationists to the oil industry have used the same tactic.

Yep, in general people will happily accept the most spurious and tenuous proof if it supports what they want to believe or already believed to be true, but demand higher and higher standards of proof for things they don't want to believe or don't believe to be true.
 
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