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Subscribe to Pipes and tobaccos magazine click hereProhibition by increments - Winter 2010
Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking reveals the anti-smoking movement's ultimate motive
Stephen A. Ross
“From the very outset, the people of the Old World were divided between those who swiftly became enamored of tobacco and those who found the smell unpleasant and the habit depraved,” (11-12) writes Christopher Snowden in his ground-breaking, well-researched and riveting Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking.
An independent researcher who studied history at England’s Lancaster University, Snowden dug through piles of scientific reports, meeting minutes and historical documents to chronicle the anti-smoking movement from its earliest days, revealing a rise-and-fall pattern of 500 years of anti-smoking sentiment intending to stamp out tobacco use entirely. Each movement achieved a level of success but ultimately resulted in failure.
Snowden chronicles the anti-smoking movements around the world but closely examines its impact in the United States and Great Britain.
The anti-smoking movement in the United States gained momentum in the early 20th century as machine-made cigarettes gained popularity, providing more people a cheap alternative to smoke. Rooted in the Temperance movement, anti-smoking advocates lobbied states to ban the sale and consumption of cigarettes and vowed to achieve a smokeless America by 1925. By 1907 13 states had banned cigarette sales and use.
The outbreak of World War I effectively ended the anti-smoking movement in the U.S. for almost 40 years. Cigarettes and tobacco pouches became standard issue for American Doughboys heading to Europe. Tobacco use by soldiers was so widespread that anti-tobacco sentiment was almost considered treasonous. “Every war since the 17th century led to an upsurge in tobacco use … but none had so dramatic effect as …World War I.” (53)
As cigarette smoking reached unprecedented popularity in the inter-war years, medical professionals began making anecdotal observations of smoking and lung cancer cases. Nazi Germany led the world in funding for scientific studies linking smoking and lung cancer. Hitler’s Germany “embarked on an unprecedented campaign against smoking. Age-old prejudices against tobacco were wedded to theories of racial hygiene, eugenics, public health and Social Darwinism to become a potent political force.” (71)
Today’s anti-tobacco lobbyists have much to admire from the Nazi regime. Hitler banned smoking in public places, raised taxes on tobacco and placed restrictions on advertisements. However, on Sept. 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland, sparking World War II. Cigarette consumption soared once again, and by war’s end, more than half of American men and a third of American women smoked. “War had once again been a boon to the cigarette companies but tobacco industry insiders were becoming increasingly uncomfortable about the effects their products were having on health.” (77)
It would take until 1968 for an anti-smoking group to form when John Banhzaf III formed Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and started lobbying for nonsmokers’ rights.
Detailing the work of ASH and other anti-tobacco zealots, Snowden’s strongest and most compelling chapters reveal the movement’s alliance with government health officials, resulting in a slippery slope of rhetoric and law that began as an effort to remove tobacco advertising on television in the 1960s and has descended to today’s demand for outright tobacco prohibition.
In 1972, Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld called for public smoking bans, causing “the first significant wave of anti-smoking activity since the war ….” (111-112) The ensuing push for nonsmoking sections in restaurants and public transportation marked a significant shift in the anti-tobacco movement’s strategy from educating people about smoking to segregating smokers.
The anti-smoking movement soon embraced the secondhand smoke theory, thinking that its position would become more popular if it could claim that smoking harmed the health of nonsmokers, regardless of truth. Snowden writes that scientists used epidemiological studies for the “first time to identify rather than explain an epidemic.” (140)
Snowden places the development of the public health movement in the last quarter of the 20th century in the context of the medical community’s failure to achieve significant medical advances. “With the battle against contagious diseases all but won, Europeans and Americans survived long enough to die of old age—most often through heart disease or cancer.” (146) He cites a conference in the Soviet Union in 1978, in which the World Health Organization changed the definition of health from “absence of illness” to “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.” (147)
Throughout the 1980s, anti-smoking advocates adopted measures to de-normalize smokers. As part of this strategy, they developed a policy of pursuing limited bans with loopholes so that they could incrementally move toward total bans. And the movement had support from officials in Washington, D.C. While no scientific study could link secondhand smoke with lung cancer, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop overstated the link.
And government’s support of the anti-tobacco movement didn’t end with Koop. In 1998, the Environmental Protection Agency lowered its scientific standards to allow null studies and weak associations in epidemiological study results to be accepted as positive associations, “deceiving the American public on a grand scale.” (175)
With each small success, the anti-tobacco lobby’s fervor grew and its mission changed. Instead of improving public health, it wished to destroy the tobacco industry.
While tobacco companies worked to create safer cigarettes—with 150 such products receiving patents from 1975 to 2000—antis railed against them because they “would not remove the nuisance of secondhand smoke, would not lead to the destruction of the tobacco industry and might work against their efforts to persuade smokers to quit.” (186)
Another potential reason for the antis’ adamant stance against safer cigarettes may stem from the movement’s support by big pharmaceutical companies, which had isolated nicotine and developed nicotine patches and gum. With the passage of each ban, sales of alternative nicotine delivery systems rose. If nicotine could be removed entirely from tobacco products, then it would eliminate a person’s desire to smoke and pharmaceutical companies would be the only nicotine providers. With such alternatives available, grass-roots anti-smoking advocates began to view the smoker, not smoking, as the villain. “For the first time since the Nazi era it became acceptable to openly describe a group of human beings as ‘filthy’ or ‘dirty’ without inviting censure.” (283)
As the battle against smoking winds down, Snowden predicts that the lobbyists, lawyers and advocates will take aim on alcohol, fatty foods and environmental pollutants. With the “smoking epidemic” well under control, they’ll mount offensives against the “obesity epidemic,” the “drinking epidemic” and the “gambling epidemic,” arguing that these problems cost money and are thus a matter of public health. “Draconian legislation is embraced by those in government because they feel compelled to act and because they are immersed in a political climate that is as apocalyptic as it is puritanical.” (320)
Snowden identifies the antis as participating in a morality movement that has replaced religion of the soul by religion of the body masquerading as science-based evidence. Snowden finds no difference between tobacco’s historical enemies through 500 years of history—“fire safety, Christianity, Islam, public morality, nationalism, racial hygiene, economics, environmentalism, public decency, socialism and facism”—than its current enemies now who use health as their crutch, describing them as “new skins, old wine.” (357)
Regarding its increasingly ridiculous claims of the harms of smoking, including thirdhand smoke theory, which claims that smoke particles absorbed in clothing can raise health risk, Snowden warns that the anti-tobacco lobby’s witch hunt may ultimately fail. Quoting Count Corti who described anti-smoking efforts as a “miserable fiasco” in his 1931 History of Smoking, Snowden concludes, “They would do well to remind themselves that many of the anti-smoking crusades of the last five hundred years seemed unstoppable just before they collapsed beneath the hubris and hyperbole of their advocates …Today’s anti-smoking movement may be influential, wealthy and untouchable but only by avoiding a ‘miserable fiasco’ will it be unique.” (361)
While Snowden maintains a neutral tone throughout his comprehensive telling of the 500-year history of the anti-smoking crusade, the subject’s very nature is sure to raise intense passions on both sides of the issue. Through his review of the secondhand smoke evidence, he clearly points out that no study has yet shown a significant link between secondhand smoke and harm to health. Velvet Glove, Iron Fist thus frames the antis in a damning light, illuminating their half-truths, lies and willful statistical manipulation to achieve their intolerant ends.
Placed in its historical context, Snowden’s conclusions provide hope for lovers of the leaf that some day in the not-so-distant future common sense and tolerance will once again prevail.
Velvet Glove, Iron Fist is available in bookstores everywhere. Signed copies may be ordered at www.velvetgloveironfist.com.
An independent researcher who studied history at England’s Lancaster University, Snowden dug through piles of scientific reports, meeting minutes and historical documents to chronicle the anti-smoking movement from its earliest days, revealing a rise-and-fall pattern of 500 years of anti-smoking sentiment intending to stamp out tobacco use entirely. Each movement achieved a level of success but ultimately resulted in failure.
Snowden chronicles the anti-smoking movements around the world but closely examines its impact in the United States and Great Britain.
The anti-smoking movement in the United States gained momentum in the early 20th century as machine-made cigarettes gained popularity, providing more people a cheap alternative to smoke. Rooted in the Temperance movement, anti-smoking advocates lobbied states to ban the sale and consumption of cigarettes and vowed to achieve a smokeless America by 1925. By 1907 13 states had banned cigarette sales and use.
The outbreak of World War I effectively ended the anti-smoking movement in the U.S. for almost 40 years. Cigarettes and tobacco pouches became standard issue for American Doughboys heading to Europe. Tobacco use by soldiers was so widespread that anti-tobacco sentiment was almost considered treasonous. “Every war since the 17th century led to an upsurge in tobacco use … but none had so dramatic effect as …World War I.” (53)
As cigarette smoking reached unprecedented popularity in the inter-war years, medical professionals began making anecdotal observations of smoking and lung cancer cases. Nazi Germany led the world in funding for scientific studies linking smoking and lung cancer. Hitler’s Germany “embarked on an unprecedented campaign against smoking. Age-old prejudices against tobacco were wedded to theories of racial hygiene, eugenics, public health and Social Darwinism to become a potent political force.” (71)
Today’s anti-tobacco lobbyists have much to admire from the Nazi regime. Hitler banned smoking in public places, raised taxes on tobacco and placed restrictions on advertisements. However, on Sept. 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland, sparking World War II. Cigarette consumption soared once again, and by war’s end, more than half of American men and a third of American women smoked. “War had once again been a boon to the cigarette companies but tobacco industry insiders were becoming increasingly uncomfortable about the effects their products were having on health.” (77)
It would take until 1968 for an anti-smoking group to form when John Banhzaf III formed Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and started lobbying for nonsmokers’ rights.
Detailing the work of ASH and other anti-tobacco zealots, Snowden’s strongest and most compelling chapters reveal the movement’s alliance with government health officials, resulting in a slippery slope of rhetoric and law that began as an effort to remove tobacco advertising on television in the 1960s and has descended to today’s demand for outright tobacco prohibition.
In 1972, Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld called for public smoking bans, causing “the first significant wave of anti-smoking activity since the war ….” (111-112) The ensuing push for nonsmoking sections in restaurants and public transportation marked a significant shift in the anti-tobacco movement’s strategy from educating people about smoking to segregating smokers.
The anti-smoking movement soon embraced the secondhand smoke theory, thinking that its position would become more popular if it could claim that smoking harmed the health of nonsmokers, regardless of truth. Snowden writes that scientists used epidemiological studies for the “first time to identify rather than explain an epidemic.” (140)
Snowden places the development of the public health movement in the last quarter of the 20th century in the context of the medical community’s failure to achieve significant medical advances. “With the battle against contagious diseases all but won, Europeans and Americans survived long enough to die of old age—most often through heart disease or cancer.” (146) He cites a conference in the Soviet Union in 1978, in which the World Health Organization changed the definition of health from “absence of illness” to “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.” (147)
Throughout the 1980s, anti-smoking advocates adopted measures to de-normalize smokers. As part of this strategy, they developed a policy of pursuing limited bans with loopholes so that they could incrementally move toward total bans. And the movement had support from officials in Washington, D.C. While no scientific study could link secondhand smoke with lung cancer, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop overstated the link.
And government’s support of the anti-tobacco movement didn’t end with Koop. In 1998, the Environmental Protection Agency lowered its scientific standards to allow null studies and weak associations in epidemiological study results to be accepted as positive associations, “deceiving the American public on a grand scale.” (175)
With each small success, the anti-tobacco lobby’s fervor grew and its mission changed. Instead of improving public health, it wished to destroy the tobacco industry.
While tobacco companies worked to create safer cigarettes—with 150 such products receiving patents from 1975 to 2000—antis railed against them because they “would not remove the nuisance of secondhand smoke, would not lead to the destruction of the tobacco industry and might work against their efforts to persuade smokers to quit.” (186)
Another potential reason for the antis’ adamant stance against safer cigarettes may stem from the movement’s support by big pharmaceutical companies, which had isolated nicotine and developed nicotine patches and gum. With the passage of each ban, sales of alternative nicotine delivery systems rose. If nicotine could be removed entirely from tobacco products, then it would eliminate a person’s desire to smoke and pharmaceutical companies would be the only nicotine providers. With such alternatives available, grass-roots anti-smoking advocates began to view the smoker, not smoking, as the villain. “For the first time since the Nazi era it became acceptable to openly describe a group of human beings as ‘filthy’ or ‘dirty’ without inviting censure.” (283)
As the battle against smoking winds down, Snowden predicts that the lobbyists, lawyers and advocates will take aim on alcohol, fatty foods and environmental pollutants. With the “smoking epidemic” well under control, they’ll mount offensives against the “obesity epidemic,” the “drinking epidemic” and the “gambling epidemic,” arguing that these problems cost money and are thus a matter of public health. “Draconian legislation is embraced by those in government because they feel compelled to act and because they are immersed in a political climate that is as apocalyptic as it is puritanical.” (320)
Snowden identifies the antis as participating in a morality movement that has replaced religion of the soul by religion of the body masquerading as science-based evidence. Snowden finds no difference between tobacco’s historical enemies through 500 years of history—“fire safety, Christianity, Islam, public morality, nationalism, racial hygiene, economics, environmentalism, public decency, socialism and facism”—than its current enemies now who use health as their crutch, describing them as “new skins, old wine.” (357)
Regarding its increasingly ridiculous claims of the harms of smoking, including thirdhand smoke theory, which claims that smoke particles absorbed in clothing can raise health risk, Snowden warns that the anti-tobacco lobby’s witch hunt may ultimately fail. Quoting Count Corti who described anti-smoking efforts as a “miserable fiasco” in his 1931 History of Smoking, Snowden concludes, “They would do well to remind themselves that many of the anti-smoking crusades of the last five hundred years seemed unstoppable just before they collapsed beneath the hubris and hyperbole of their advocates …Today’s anti-smoking movement may be influential, wealthy and untouchable but only by avoiding a ‘miserable fiasco’ will it be unique.” (361)
While Snowden maintains a neutral tone throughout his comprehensive telling of the 500-year history of the anti-smoking crusade, the subject’s very nature is sure to raise intense passions on both sides of the issue. Through his review of the secondhand smoke evidence, he clearly points out that no study has yet shown a significant link between secondhand smoke and harm to health. Velvet Glove, Iron Fist thus frames the antis in a damning light, illuminating their half-truths, lies and willful statistical manipulation to achieve their intolerant ends.
Placed in its historical context, Snowden’s conclusions provide hope for lovers of the leaf that some day in the not-so-distant future common sense and tolerance will once again prevail.
Velvet Glove, Iron Fist is available in bookstores everywhere. Signed copies may be ordered at www.velvetgloveironfist.com.
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