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38
reasonable doubt as to the hazards occasioned by cigarette smoking,
the rate of tobacco consumption has continued unabated.
Substantial increases in "smoking assisted" diseases such as
bronchogenic carcinoma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, peptic
ulcer, circulatory disease and coronary thrombosis have failed to
make any permanent impression on the confirmed smoker, who,
in continuing to fill the air at home, in the office, workshop,
train, bus or plane with obnoxious fumes and ash, neglects the
most elementary rules of hygiene and makes exertions for a
cleaner atmosphere under the Clean Air Act, a sham.
Whilst it would appear that shock tactics have had only a
limited success, enforced prohibition, though eminently desirable
as a health measure, is impractical and psychologically unsound.
Habituees and addicts who, on various frail and flimsy
pretexts, refuse to accept the evidence as presented, should be
left to their own devices and all efforts concentrated on discouraging
the younger generation from commencing this pernicious
habit.
A survey covering some 10,000 children aged between 7
and 17 years in junior, grammar and secondary modern schools
in Staffordshire carried out by its Health Education Officer
revealed that enthusiasm and medical know-how were not enough
to change the attitudes and behaviour of children to the smoking
habit, and the presentation of facts and statistics to the uninitiated
led to confusion.
Surveys have indicated that, with children, the problem is
most acute in the lower strata of any school, that is, among the
least intelligent or the least successful and culturally backward
children, who develop a "compensating" mechanism for their
shortcomings by "showing off". To them smoking is "clever",
"big", "grown up" and "manly" and somehow is calculated
to endow them with a superiority complex over the "cissy" nonsmoker.
This particular kind of attitude is fostered, supported and
sustained by a barrage of propaganda in the press and on television,
which romanticise this unhygienic and potentially dangerous
practice. Somehow such misrepresentation needs to be
exposed as counterfeit, and shattered, and as suggested in my
previous reports, the most likely method of achieving this aim is
by ridicule. Ridicule is destructive, and could be most effective
if used in a subtle purposeful manner. Government support,
including financial, should be given unstintingly to organisations
particularly suitable for the purposes of providing counter-propaganda
including the production of comic film strips and cleverly
presented cartoons.