Throughout the world tobacco has been chewed, snuffed, smoked, traded, used as money, applied to wounds and tumors, and eaten. For decades, society saw smoking as a normal and acceptable part of life by seeing movie stars, public officials, soldiers and later, TV actors having cigarettes, pipes, or cigars in their hands (Figure 1).
Figure 1a. A typical advertisement from the 1940s.
Figure 1b. Formula 1 driver Danny Sullivan – sponsored by Marlboro.
Images courtesy of Tobacco.org (www.tobacco.org)
The first modern research linking smoking to disease and death emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. Scientists reported tumors developing on mice where cigarette tar was applied to their skin.1 In 1964 the First Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking was published calling for research and analysis exploring the effects of smoking on health and society as a whole.2 In 1965 tobacco use in the United States peaked with 42% of the adult population smoking.
