Ban all tobacco???
But not for Cuban cigars, right? I mean, no ban for Cuban cigars, correct? There will be an exception for Cuban cigars, I assume.
Just for the record, I’m not supporting the Cuban economy by smoking Cuban cigars, I’m burning their crops.
Doubt it’d make much difference provided pot remains “affordable” to the consumer. Even on this thread the stated reason for most smokers quitting is cost…and, unlike my folks, most can’t have started without being at least vaguely aware of health implications. I’m 70 and at no time during my growing up was I under the illusion that smoking wasn’t harmful to health.
ummm…consuming Cuban cigars is a Federal offense…see “Trading With The Enemy” act.
The laws that make up the embargo are quite explicit. Under the authority of the Trading With the Enemies Act, the Cuban Democracy Act, additional amendments to TWEA and the Cuban Assets Control regulations, it is unlawful for an American to purchase any product of Cuban origin in a third country or to bring any product of Cuban origin back to the United States.
Mine neither…not least because it provided a smokescreen (so to speak) around the strong family history of ASCVD. For me, at least.
On my first visit with my intervention cardiologist after my CAC scan, he asked the sort of detailed social history medical students are taught to do in their early clinical training…or at least, they used to. Probably been replaced by how to check all the boxes quickly on the EMR screen. The growing realisation made me feel a bit of a chump for dismissing my mum’s ASCVD all these years as purely due to smoking as he went through the approximate age and cause of death of her siblings (didn’t know most for sure and had to explain that I was really young for most and, back then, the first words out of most folks’ mouth on hearing such news were condolences not “What did he/she die of?”)
Out of interest, do you know when your smoking grandparents were born? Mine were clustered around the late 1870s so, even if my grandfathers did start smoking young, those years predated the commercial manufacture of cigarettes which are probably more likely to be “worse” for every metric associated with smoking. My grandfather started smoking “roll your own” and never changed. I remember mum saying that they were barely worth the effort on the rare occasions she tried them
My grandparents were born in the 1890’s. Dad probably smoked hand rolled in the 1930’s and was probably issued commercial cigarettes when he was drafted in 1943. Not sure about that.
Dad was born in 1923. Mom caught him smoking when he was 10, made him eat a raw onion whole. He puked.
He smoked until he was 70, never ate onions in anything again.
Going back to jerryab2’s original post, I.e., More than half of US adults support ending the sale of all tobacco products, according to a new study led by researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and nearly two-thirds said they support banning menthol cigarette sales and The FDA is still considering its proposed ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, the key issue is whether or not any of these concerns can be enacted.
Although annual lobbying dollars on tobacco have dropped drastically from $72.9 million in 1998 to subsequent annual levels within the range of $20 million and $32 million as shown at this website
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries/summary?id=A02&cycle=2022 ,
the tobacco industry appears formidable when threatened and challenged as demonstrated in the following case.
Forcing the Navy to Sell Cigarettes on Ships: How the Tobacco Industry and Politicians Torpedoed Navy Tobacco Control
MARCH 2011 American Journal of Public Health
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2010.196329
Here’s the Abstract:
In 1986, the US Navy announced the goal of becoming smoke-free by 2000. However, efforts to restrict tobacco sales and use aboard the USS Roosevelt prompted tobacco industry lobbyists to persuade their allies in Congress to legislate that all naval ships must sell tobacco. Congress also removed control of ships’ stores from the Navy. By 1993, the Navy abandoned its smoke-free goal entirely and promised smokers a place to smoke on all ships. Congressional complicity in promoting the agenda of the tobacco industry thwarted the Navy’s efforts to achieve a healthy military workforce. Because of military lobbying constraints, civilian pressure on Congress may be necessary to establish effective tobacco control policies in the armed forces.
At more than 30%, the prevalence of smoking in the military is 50% higher than is the civilian rate, with a 40% prevalence among those aged 18 to 25 years and nearly 50% among those who have been in a war zone. From 1998 to 2005, tobacco use in the military increased 7.7%, from 29.9% to 32.2%, reversing the decline of prior decades. A tobacco-friendly military culture persists, including the availability of cheap tobacco products, liberal smoking breaks, and easily accessible smoking areas. Smoking damages health and readiness and increases medical and training costs. In addition to short-term effects, such as impairment to vision and hearing, long-term consequences include lung and other cancers, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and problematic wound healing. The US Department of Defense spends more than $1.6 billion annually on tobacco-related health care and absenteeism.
In addition to compromised military readiness and Department of Defense expenses, a tobacco-friendly military culture takes a societal toll—economic and human—long after military personnel return to civilian life. The Department of Veterans Affairs spent $5 billion in 2008 treating veterans with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a diagnosis most often associated with smoking. Lifelong smokers have a 50% chance of dying prematurely. Most costs must be borne by the veteran: in 1998, Congress denied disability pensions to tobacco-sickened veterans who began to smoke during their service, initially labeling smoking in the military as “willful misconduct.”
Department of Defense Directive 1010.10, issued in 1986, established a baseline “policy on smoking in the DoD [Department of Defense] occupied buildings and facilities.” The policy emphasized a healthy military that discouraged smoking and designated authority to the services and to individual commanders to set specific policies. However, subsequent attempts to set such policies achieved limited results, in part because of the tobacco industry’s influence on Congress.
The industry successfully lobbied Congress to prevent the military from raising the prices of tobacco products sold in military stores, and to ensure that in-store tobacco promotions would not be prohibited. Congress also prevented the army from implementing a stronger tobacco control policy than that set by Directive 1010.10, although the directive was intended to be a policy floor upon which the services could expand. To achieve its goals, Congress privately pressured military tobacco control advocates, publicly scolded them, interfered with funding for military programs, and passed laws preventing the establishment of recommended tobacco control policies.
We examined an attempt by a former captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt to ban smoking on the aircraft carrier and showed how tobacco industry lobbyists, working through their allies in the US Congress, were successful in stymieing his efforts and forcing the Navy to sell cigarettes on all ships.
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I highly recommend reading the entire article.
Regarding the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Rosevelt, its Captain Stanley W. Bryant announced that the ship would become entirely smoke-free by July 1993, including an end to cigarette sales in the ship’s store. Motivated by a recently released report that secondhand smoke caused cancer in nonsmokers, Bryant felt obliged to act. He said, “I’m the commanding officer of these kids and I can’t have them inhaling secondhand smoke. I wouldn’t put them in the line of fire. I’m not going to put them in the line of smoke.” Navy Surgeon General Hagen and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Frank B. Kelso (1990–1994) supported Bryant’s efforts.
Interestingly, 25 years earlier in 1968, the Captain of my U.S. Navy ship had similar concerns about the unhealthy adverse effects of tobacco smoking and secondhand tobacco smoke on nonsmokers. I was a Supply Corps officer in charge of the ship’s store among other duties that sold tax-free tobacco products aboard a U.S. Navy helicopter carrier with a Navy crew of 600 that when deployed to the Vietnam War embarked a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter squadron and up to 1,200 combat ready Marines. During pre-deployment preparations in San Diego, my Captain called a meeting with the ship’s medical doctor, my Supply Corps boss and me to discuss banning all tobacco products and canceling the procurement of tax-free tobacco products for sale aboard ship. When asked, I related that the ship’s store sold a cartoon of tax-free cigarettes (with 10 packs each with 10 cigarettes) for $1.10 in accordance with directives set forth by the U.S. Navy Resale System; the Captain quickly responded, “That’s a penny for a coffin nail! A sinister enticement to smoke!” I related that I was unaware of any regulations regarding the banning of the sale of tobacco products and that the only restriction was tax-free cigarettes shall not be sold by unit stores or activities within the three-mile limit or international boundary of the United States. I also related that if tobacco products will not be available at the ship’s store, as soon after docking in Subic Bay in the Philippines, our crew smokers will run to the base Navy Exchange store to buy and stock up with cigarettes and cigars. We discussed looking at designating smoking and non-smoking areas. Non-smoking areas already in place were the bridge and CIC (Command Information Center) when underway, the officers wardroom (officers’ dining room and place for rest, relaxation and recreation), and the Supply Corps newly installed UNIVAC 1500 computer space (my ship was in the very first group of ships equipped with this automatic data processing system, which all Supply Corps officer students were introduced in a computer class at the U.S. Navy Supply Corps School in Athens, GA). Subsequently, after consulting with the Ship’s legal officer, the Captain reluctantly gave me the green light to procure, stock and sell tax-free tobacco products. Back then the tobacco lobby was a lot more powerful and influential and most likely would have challenged and defeated any tobacco ban in the military.
Ending on a positive note, on 4/8/2010, the U.S. Navy announced a ban on smoking aboard submarines while they were deployed below the surface after their own medical testing showed non-smokers suffered effects of second-hand smoke. The Navy successfully implemented their comprehensive smoking ban aboard submarines by the end of Dec. 31, 2010. For more details see the following:
Banning Cigarette Smoking on US Navy Submarines: A Case Study
I agree with Wendy’s statement “tobacco will never be outlawed in the U.S.” for her given reasons.
Regards,
Ray
A life-long non-smoker, whose father was a non-smoker, entering the U.S. Army for combat duty in the Pacific War of WWII and after the war’s end, returning home as a pack-a-day smoker of unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes until age 50, when he quit smoking “cold turkey” and lived on to age 90 without any lung maladies. My mother, supported by me and my four siblings, did not allow him to smoke in our house in Hawaii and while driving anyone of us in the family car.