this also sounds like hindsight bs

I'm a big fan of watching episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Boris Karloff's Thriller late at night. Most of the episodes are from 1959 to 62. I was just telling my husband how unbelievable it was that almost every character smoked in these episodes. From moms sitting at the breakfast tables with the kids to grandmas. Everyone lights up. Of course with the Hitchcock episodes it's also not uncommon to see a man smack a woman if she's being "hysterical."

We sure have come a long way.

yet had full rich taste ------ OMG!

but it was like that when I was a kid back then.

Thank you. Interesting and useful.

The whole series is a great listen.

Bernays talks about convincing people that bacon is part of a "doctor-recommended, hearty breakfast."

that the reason she started smoking was because all the female movie stars smoked. And they smoked in a sexy way. I have a feeling that "ad placement" in movies went further back than we realize.

old Life Magazine and pay attention to the cigarette advertizing in the '30s and '40s. It was glamorized. It was recommended by doctors, who, as it happens, smoked in greater numbers than the population in general. Even though by the 1950s a common nickname for cigarettes was "coffin nails", there continued to be an enormous denial around the harm that cigarettes could do. And during the war there was a rise in independent women. Husbands and boyfriends were away. Some women joined the service themselves, and many who might otherwise have been homemakers were now in the work force. Smoking was of course a symbol of their independence, and perhaps even patriotism.

For those who haven't seen it, or have forgotten the details, watch the very first episode of Mad Men. They've gotten a cigarette account (I forget which one) and there's a bunch of both casual and rather pointed conversation around cigarettes. "People like to smoke," says one character.

it happened to me. (life long non smoker here but once I craved cigarettes after a neighbor moved. I used to go and have coffee every morning with her. When she moved I felt the craving) I think that is why kids of smokers end up smoking. And it might have led wives of smokers to take it up also.

it's still often portrayed in movies as either glamorous or attractively defiant, such as when the hero lights up, is told smoking not allowed there, and continues to smoke anyway. Yuck.

And yeah, smoking is stinky and disgusting. Smokers are generally oblivious to the stinky aspect, and don't realize to what extent the addiction controls them.

I think even rations during Vietnam contained cigarettes. Of course I’d hardly hold that against them. With the chance of being killed in action every day most of them probably weren’t too worried about their future health.

that airlines included a small pack of two or three cigarettes with the meals they served.

The issue of future health is huge.

My older sister died two and a half years ago at age 70 from the effects of lifelong smoking. She started at age 13, in 1960, when smoking was still glamorous and the accepted thing to do if you were an adult. The Surgeon General's report was still four years away.

Despite having a VERY serious heart attack at age 42, she was never able to quit completely or permanently.

She was only 18 months older than me, and by the time we were in our 50s people who didn't already know us and know how old we were or our age difference, were totally amazed to learn that she was only a year and a half older. She looked much older, thanks to the smoking.

I'm now 71. I tend to think I look my age, but when I tell new people how old I am they are usually completely astonished. They think I'm as much as a decade younger, which sort of surprises me. But at least two things are in play here. One, and probably the more important thing, is that I don't act 71. I have a liveliness more commonly found in someone a lot younger. The other is that because I've never smoked, I'm relatively unlined, and of course I don't have the gray skin seen in smokers.

It feels as if smokers never quite get it. They don't get the health implications. They don't get how much it ages them. They don't get that when they step outside for a cigarette, we can smell it on them when they return. Sigh.