No HEALTH problem in our time has commanded more attention
than smoking. The issuance of the official Surgeon General's Report in 1964
constituted a major scientific and medical event and began a public and medical
concern that continues. Despite the concern, however, one third of the women
and half the men in the United States still smoke cigarettes.
Deaths from
diseases associated with cigarette smoking continue. A large proportion of
health resources and money must be devoted to trying to treat such diseases.
But there are encouraging events. As many as 1.5 million people a year recently
have been abandoning smoking.
Among them, fortunately, are young and middle-aged men who
are at particularly high risk of premature death from lung cancer and coronary
heart disease. Also hopeful is evidence from a Public
Health Service survey
indicating that while 29 percent of boys and 15 percent of girls at age 17 are
regular smokers, this represents a significant reduction in the proportion of
young people taking up smoking. And school systems across the country are
emphasizing educational programs on smoking and health in the hope of creating
a "smokeless generation."
The evidence about the dangers of cigarette smoking to health
is now overwhelming. In the words of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Public
Health Service, smoking "is the greatest preventable cause of illness,
disability and premature death in this country."
A conviction shared by
medical and health agencies has been expressed by the New York State Commission
of Health: "No other single factor kills so many Americans as cigarette
smoking .... Bullets, germs and viruses are killers; but for Americans,
cigarettes are more deadly than any of them. No single known lethal agent is as
deadly as the cigarette." Smoking is a certain irony in the history of
tobacco use. American Indians, early explorers discovered, smoked tobacco in
pipes for ceremonial silicoses, and believed it had some medicinal values.
