A Century Of Change

As we continue our centenary celebrations, we look at how attitudes to smoking have changed in the last 100 years…

Picture this: you’re flicking channels and you come across an advertisement for a popular cigarette brand with doctors extolling its health benefits. Unbelievable? Think again. A century ago, attitudes around smoking were strikingly different, and, shocking though it may now be, it was de rigueur to see health professionals give their approval to cigarette makers.

In a jaw-dropping state of affairs, doctors weren’t the only ones to promote smoking—in fact, during the first run of the cartoon show The Flintstones in 1960, its official sponsor was Winston cigarettes, and in one advertising segment, the characters Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble are seen smoking a pack together, with the latter remarking after a puff: “It tastes good, like a cigarette should.”

There was pushback in the media against the fabrications of wealthy tobacco giants however, and it was the American issue of Reader’s Digest which regularly sounded the (smoke) alarm. The first story on the topic was published in its pages in 1924. “Does Tobacco Injure the Human Body?”, focused on a groundbreaking study that concluded smoking was “one of the very significant reasons fewer men than women attain old age.”

Another story published in 1952 called “Cancer by the Carton” was credited with contributing to the largest drop in cigarette smoking since the Great Depression.

Smoking has lost its coolfactor in recent decades, and the number of smokers across the country continues to steadily decline. In 1922 over 65,000 tons of tobacco were sold in the UK, reaching a peak of 125,960 tons sold in 1961. Due to growing public awareness of smoking’s detrimental health effects, by 2014 that figure had dropped to 43,793 tons.

In the past decade, the rate of smokers has dropped considerably. And it’s young people in particular who are turning away from the fumes: 25.7 per cent of 18-24 year olds smoked regularly in 2011 while in 2018 16.8 per cent did. Hear that? It’s the collective sound of lungs breathing again.

■ by Marco Marcelline