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that Swedish research scientists have recently confirmed what has
long been held by informed opinion that cigarette smoking, which
is acid by nature, can free cancer-producing substances from
polluted air. The Swedish Board of Health is shortly to publish
their Report on smoking and lung cancer which will serve to
emphasise the irrefutable validity of warnings given in this country
about the dangers of smoking.
Attempts to convert the older and heavier smoker have proved
disconcertingly disappointing for, even when they are intellectually
convinced of the dangers of smoking, they are still reluctant to
take any remedial action. One is drawn, reluctantly, to the conclusion
that the time and effort involved would be better spent on
discouraging the younger generation from commencing this
pernicious habit.
However, medical problems are seldom precise and it is clear
that propaganda of the "cause and effect" kind has little impact
on the immature mind and repetition of available data merely
promotes monotony. 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.
Girls seem to consider it "alluringly" wicked.
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. At the time of going to press
it seems that, for the first time ever, direct action by the Government
is likely for it is reliably reported that, in the near future, it will
press for the banning of all smoking advertisements on television.
Notwithstanding the fact that, as a health measure, enforced
prohibition would be eminently desirable, this action is impractical
and psychologically unsound. Furthermore, other psychological
studies have shown that cancer education with a strong fear content
has no lasting effect in inducing permanent changes in attitude.
Moreover, many youngsters smoke not only with the parents'
consent but with their active co-operation and it is the home
influence, i.e. parents' habits and opinions, which is of paramount
importance. Health educators are generally agreed that their main
anti-smoking measures should rightly be directed to the primary
school children where the greatest influence can be exerted at a