How common was smoking in 30's,40's,50's?? (WW2, war, 50s)

[mb64282]

what *%#@$*@!$^* decided to make a cigg anyways, I started the gum this morning and I already feel like I'm going to cave soon, I wish I was alive back then and then I wouldn't know how bad it was and wouldn't feel like quiting

[hawkeye2009]

Originally Posted by averagejoe76

I watch alot of Film Noir and it seems like most of the people smoke..
Something you dont see often in recent film.
Did Tobacco companies pay for actors to smoke in films?
Or did the films reflect society at that time?

Even in the 1960s, everyone smoked. Cars and buisnesses smelled like smoke. Obviously, advertising has been banned, but cigarette, beer and soft drink commercials dominated. Keep in mind that physicians actually felt that smoking was good for you up to the 1950s, well prior to the surgeon general report.

[Fontucky]

As a kid in the fifties and early sixties, everyone smoked, even my grandmother. My Mom smoked Parliament and my Dad smoked Kent and Salem. They were prolific cocktail party throwers, and everyone who came to those seemed to smoke. I can recall driving in the Country Squire station wagon, windows closed, and both of them up front smoking like chimneys. Yuck.

Restaurants full of smoke, people smoking in grocery stores, in doctor/dentist waiting rooms. The last time I recall encountering a smoker in a grocery store here in California was as late as 1997.

I did not grow up to be a cigarette smoker.

[camelot05]

Originally Posted by 68vette

http://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/tcrb...5_foreword.pdf This is a great forward on smoking. The reassuring image of physicians and other health care practioners was use extensively to convince the public that cigarette smoking was safe, acceptable, and without risk.

http://www.ishib.org/journal/19-2s3/ethn-19-02s3-28.pdf This is a research paper done on smoking incidents in movies from the 1940s up to the 2000s. You would be shocked to see that the number of smoking incidents in the 1990s-2003 was almost the same as the 1940s.

I'm assuming movies today contain smoking because of the stories... war, gangsters, movies that take place back in the past, etc... higher percentage of smokers.

I know if I'm watching a film that takes place in the 40s, and there are no smokers, hardly authentic.

[mainelander]

which is alright with me, just seeing a woman smoke turns me off

[NYLooking]

If you ever catch reruns of St.Elsewhere, you will see characters smoking in their hospital beds.

[Wingfoot]

Originally Posted by BlackShoe

Even the armed forces went along with smoking back then.Right after arriving at Navy boot camp we were offered a chance to buy cigarettes,even though I was only 17,and strictly speaking,not old enough to buy them.The real bargains for smokers came after we went aboard ship and went to sea.Once we were outside the three mile limit,the ships store could sell smokes without the federal tax stamps,so called "sea stores" as we called them.Regular sizes smokes such as Camels and Luckys cost 90 cents a carton,king sized,such as Pall Malls,were a dollar,and filter tips were $1.10.That is not a typo,those prices were per carton,not per pack.Almost everyone smoked,and our work spaces were routinely smoke filled.

When I went thru Marine boot camp in the 50's we were given 2 cartons of Lucky Strikes and told to light up 3-4 times a day and we all did as we were told as the consequences of not doing so were no joke.
I never thought of smoking before then but did for another 25 yrs so those 2 free cartons given out to millions by the big tobacco must have been the greatest return on investment of all time!

[catman]

Smoking was nearly universal until the 80s-90s. I smoked a pack a day for 25 years and gave it up 'cold turkey' in 1992. I'm glad I did! But it was very hard. I've heard that nicotine and opiates are the two most addictive substances.

[billybobwv]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

I've seen numbers that indicate up to 70% of adults smoked in the 1950s. Also, many TV shows were sponsored by cigarette companies. I have a film from the History Channel done several years ago about cigarette advertising that has commercial clips from various shows: I Love Lucy was Phillip Morris, Camel was big on several as was Lucky Strike, Winston was on The Flintstones and The Beverly Hillbillies, Kool was on Rawhide.

I have that History Channel show on tape !!!

One thing they left out though..even though cigarette ads were banned from TV and radio nationwide in 1971 some places had actually banned them earlier. One such city was Baltimore when WJZ-TV channel 13 had banned cigarette ads in late 1968 (?) followed quickly by WBAL channel 11 and WMAR channel 2. Soon after that I was told WCAO, WLPL-FM and WFBR radio had banned cigarette ads aswell but not sure if the other Baltimore radio stations had followed suit or not. In either late 1969 or very early 1970, the cigarette TV ad ban expanded to Denver and I am pretty sure to Salt Lake City ( no doubt due to the Mormon influence there ) then a total ban for everyone in 1971. By 1969 it was common knowledge that cigarette ads would be gone so the cigarette companies didn't bother trying to get their ads to air in Baltimore, Denver or Salt Lake City. Today if this would happen..well chances are they would fight all the way until the last minute they could advertise.

[Drover]

Even well into the 1980s smoking was not really considered a "big deal." I had little trouble at 14 or 15 years old walking into a gas station and buying cigarettes. And if I had any problems doing that, several restaurants and hotels/motels had cigarette vending machines in the lobby. You could still smoke on airplanes and buses. If you got caught smoking on school grounds, they simply took away your cigarettes. Now it's grounds for suspension and being kicked out of any extracirriculars. When I started college in the early 90s they had just banned smoking in the classroom hallways -- and it was only a few years before that that they had banned smoking in the classrooms. I used to smoke a pipe with one of my econ professors in his office.