The Stacks: When Smoking Was Fun
10/10/15
No one denies that cigarette smoking is a noxious habit, but not so long ago they were so much more: herewith a tribute to all that a smoke signaled, from social status to sex appeal.
I remember the short, black marks that covered the surface of the night table next to my father’s side of the bed. They were cigarette burns from when he fell asleep, a lit butt dropping softly out of the ashtray onto the table where it scarred the wood before burning out. My dad smoked Pall Malls—and for period of time, More, those long, thin, dark brown cigarettes that were advertised to women. He smoked a couple of packs a day for decades. His aunts and uncles had smoked more than that, and for those of us of a certain generation, our childhood was filled with cigarette smoke (you’ll find ashtrays on living room tables and backyard decks in our family photo albums). I recall the haze of the smoking car on commuter trains, and it wasn’t uncommon to see someone brazen enough to smoke in a subway car, never mind airplanes, movie theaters, and sports arenas.
I wasn’t especially interested in smoking myself-a first attempt in second grade convinced me there wasn’t anything so special about it—but when I saw my svelte uncle from Belgium roll his own, I was fascinated with the ceremony of cigarettes. There was something about the whole affair that made you more of a grown up.
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The federal gov’t spent $2 million on campaign to get women to nag husbands to stop using tobacco
July 14, 2015
By Will Cousins / Watchdog Opinion
The federal government has spent almost $2 million since 2012 on a campaign to get men to stop using smokeless tobacco products by getting their wives to nag them about it, according to reports.
The money was issued as a grant to the Oregon Research Institute, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The program’s purpose is to “evaluate an innovative approach that encourages male smokeless tobacco users to quit by enlisting the support of their wives/partners, both to lead smokeless tobacco users to engage in treatment and to help them sustain abstinence.”
Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, said of the program:
American women don’t need the federal government spending money to get us to nag our husbands to stop using tobacco… Even if it were a worthwhile effort, we are $18 trillion in debt. We simply can’t afford it.
This NIH program is just a symptom of the much larger spending problem in Washington, D.C. In May, the Government Accountability Office reported that the federal government set a new record in 2014 by wasting an incredible $125 billion.
With wasteful spending like this, it’s easy to see that the government does not have a revenue problem; it needs to focus on curbing spending and balancing the budget.
