#83: Selling Cigarettes

The United States is obsessed with policing drugs and those who use them, yet the most deadly, well-studied drug in existence, nicotine, is a regulated product, legal to buy once a consumer is 21 years old. According to the WHO, tobacco, when used properly, will kill half of all people who don't stop using it. And because cigarettes are so obviously dangerous yet still widely distributed and glamorized, they hold a clue to our human condition. The story of cigarettes is the story of media.In this episode I discuss the history of tobacco advertising and what that can teach us about the history of drugs. I also discuss the roots of the Communication field of study, the power of propaganda, and methods for influencing human behavior (Freud & Bernays). Check out Mitch Zeller's Ted Talk for more about current statistics and proposed solutions to the tobacco death problem. To get an idea of what Zeller's "non-addictive cigarette" would look like, check out JAMA's "Less Addictive Cigarettes" (2019). For a great summary of Big Tobacco's history, from film to feminism, check out "The Tobacco Conspiracy" on YouTube. And for the history of Communication as a contemporary field of study, see Stephen Hartnett's piece, "Communication, Social Justice and Joyful Commitment." In the 1960s, Phillip-Morris (Marlboro) began putting ammonia into their cigarettes, allowing tobacco to be freebased and thereby reducing the quantity one needed to smoke to achieve desired effects (less tobacco required to deliver a dose of nicotine). Around the same time, manufacturers introduced the so-called "Light Cigarette," which you can read about in Anne Harding's article. To watch Dick Trickle smoke as he drives around the race track, check out YouTube. Support the show