Originally published Thursday, February 15, 1979
Chesterfields – they satisfy. I’d walk a mile for a Camel. Lucky Strikes – they’re toasted. Call for Phillip Morris. Remember those slogans? If you do, the candles on your birthday cake probably constitute a fire hazard.
But then tobacco companies spent million of dollars in advertising for just that reason. Before king size, before filters, before crush-proof boxes, before HEW and the FCC, cigarette advertising on radio was big business, and it was this advertising that for one brief moment shoved me in the glow of the spotlight usually not reserved for the likes of a country bumpkin.
It transported me from the grilled cheese sandwiches at Preacher’s Drugstore to the Majestic Theatre in New York City. From turnip greens to truffles and it was Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company, which took me on that magic carpet from Academy Street to Broadway.
In 1950 cigarette smokers had not been demoted to second-class-citizen status. Many big names in the entertainment world endorsed one brand or another. This was long before Virginia Slims started using women’s liberation as propaganda to get the gals hooked on their brand. It was a news item in the paper that was responsible for my digging into old newspaper clippings, and other assorted scraps and bits of worthless trivia that are absolutely meaningless to everyone except me.
The news item stated that the Liggett Group was selling its domestic cigarette business. In 1950 Marion Few was part owner of WDKD, and Marion’s brother, Ben Few, was president of what was then called the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company. We mentioned the slogan “They satisfy,” but they had another slogan, using the letters “ABC,” “Always Buy Chesterfield.” But some sharp Madison Avenue huckster in a grey flannel suit came up with the bright idea that, since Arthur Godfrey, Bob Hope and Perry Como all had network shows sponsored by Chesterfield, it would fit in nicely with the slogan “ABC,” “A” for Arthur, “B” for Bob, and “C” for Como.
It may sound corny, but it sold a lot of cigarettes, which brings us to August of 1950, and how I went from playing hillbilly records on Highway 52 to front-row center on Broadway of a Rogers and Hammerstein hit show, “South Pacific.”
Chesterfield decided to sponsor a radio show on CBS called the “ABC’s of Music.” The format was to invite three disc jockeys from various parts of the country and the deejays would choose recording stars who were supposedly big in their coverage area as their guests. So I was chosen. In reality, I felt as if I had been anointed. Of course my chances of getting a license to open up a massage parlor at the Vatican. The truth, of course, is I never would have had the opportunity without the help of Mr. and Mrs. Marion Few and Marion’s brother Ben.
Now keeping in mind that we had the option of choosing who the big recording stars were that would be invited as guests. And they were supposed to represent who had the big record in our listening area at the time. And I chickened out. I wasn’t about to tell those wheels at CBS New York that the big stars at WDKD were Roy Acuff or Bill Munroe. In 1950 country music was restricted to the cow pastures and the cornfields. So I settled for the Mills Brothers. Sure I did. Honestly I was so happy to be there, I would have been happy with the Hemingway High School marching band.
It was a 30-minute network show. I received $400 plus expenses. In 1950 that was a lot of bread, and no inflation. I was wined and dined. I got to see the Giants play the Dodgers in the old Polo Grounds. I even got to do the commercials for Chesterfields. Some damn Yankee figured that since I lived in the heart of tobacco country they naturally assumed I would do a great cigarette commercial for Chesterfields. It is this kind of thinking that makes me wonder how they ever won the war. But high highlights, the pinnacle, the crowning episode in a series of unforgettable experiences was getting to see the Broadway Show “South Pacific.”
In 1950 this was the hottest show on Broadway.” Tickets were at a premium. It was like trying to get a ticket to the Super Bowl. But I was a celebrity, thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Few, so in my double-breasted blue-serge suit, purchased from Swail’s Men Shop in downtown Kingstree, I marched down the center aisles of Majestic Theatre in New York City. I was closer to heaven than Dolly Parton’s bra.
Mary Martin singing Rodgers and Hammerstein, that’s class. It has been almost 29 years now since I boarded that train in Kingstree for the Big Apple. I still have some of the clippings from The County Record, and the defunct Times-Herald of Lake City.
Local boy makes good, but those who think it was all a dream, now about the picture on the front page of me and Mills Brothers taken August 23, 1950. And look at that double-breasted blue-serge suit. Talk about being the tall hog at the trough.
This is a blast from the past
2/23/2010
2/24/2010
So whats your point ?
2/24/2010
The new Tobacco Prohibition
I would like to take the time to tell the entire community about a falsehood so big that everyone who believes in freedom should be appauled.
This falsehood is so big it resonates from historical fact forward to this day. This falsehood is so big billions of dollars have been spent to make it believable to those of us who dont take the time to look up the facts.
We all remember reading about alcohol prohibition,but did you know there was also tobacco prohibition going on before alcohol became such a target of the last nanny staters.
Our great grandparents lived thru prohibition and the great depression,they also lived thru tobacco prohibition.
Heres a time line starting in 1900,dont be surprised to see the same thing playing out today nearly 100 years later.
1901: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. "Only Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books or were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity" (Dillow, 1981:10).
1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.
1904: New York City. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. "You can't do that on Fifth Avenue," the arresting officer says.
1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: "Business ... is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do."
1917: SMOKEFREE: Tobacco control laws have fallen, including smoking bans in numerous cities, and the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho and Tennessee.
1937: hitler institutes laws against smoking.This one you can google.
Now onto the falsehood......
We have been told for years by smoke free advocates that second hand smoke is the cause of everything from johnnys ear ache to cousin ED'S lung cancer. But wheres the proof!!!
Remember they claim 50,000 deaths a year yet,there are no bodys not even mass graves of the dead to second hand smoke.We await the names of these victims.
A simple stroll down historys road say 10 years or so and we start to get at the truth......
A federal Judge by the name of osteen got a case dropped in his lap in North Carolina,the case was that of EPA'S study on second hand smoke/environmental tobacco smoke.The judge an anti-tobbaco judge by reputation spent 4 years going thru the study and interviewing scientists at EPA and came to the conclusion :
JUNK SCIENCE
''EPA's 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.Before its 1992 report, EPA had always used epidemiology's gold standard CI of 95 percent to measure statistical significance. But because the U.S. studies chosen[cherry picked] for the report were not statistically significant within a 95 percent CI, for the first time in its history EPA changed the rules and used a 90 percent CI, which doubled the chance of being wrong.
This allowed it to report a statistically significant 19 percent increase [a 1.19rr] of lung cancer cases in the nonsmoking spouses of smokers over those cases found in nonsmoking spouses of nonsmokers. Even though the RR was only 1.19--an amount far short of what is normally required to demonstrate correlation or causality--the agency concluded this was proof SHS increased the risk of U.S. nonsmokers developing lung cancer by 19 percent.''
So here we find that second hand smoke was made a political scapegoat by EPA.Lets not forget how EPA has reworked the global warming studys just this last summer. Where its top scientists paper was rebuked because it didnt carry the EPA'S stand that global warming was real.
The political shenanigans surrounding SHS/ETS go deep not only with the government and its health agencies but also to the big pharmaceutical companies and non-profit orginizations aka ACS,ALA,AHA and a meriad of others. All lobbying for smoking bans and their weapon of choise Propaganda paid for by big pharma and tax dollars. Studys made to order that second hand smoke is deadly. Take a memory note here too,over 250 studys on shs/ets have found it safe.
Yet a simple look at the chemistry shows us that its:
94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a minor amount of carbon dioxide.
3 % is carbon monoxide.
3 % is those supposed 4,000 chemicals to be found in tobacco smoke. Unfortunatley for the smoke free advocates these supposed chemicals are more theorized than actually found.What is found is so small to even call them threats to humans is beyond belief.Nanograms,picograms and femptograms......
(1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80).
Now, how odd that when we search the smoke free activists sites not one of them mentions that water vapor and air are the main components of second hand smoke. Is this just a fluke or an outright omission to further their political healthscare against the general public.
The last informative tid bit I have for you is what does OSHA have to say about all this secondhand smoke stuff.
Here is where it gets interesting,it seems John Banzhaf, founder and president of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) decided to sue OSHA to make a rule on shs/ets not that OSHA didnt want to play ball with him,its just that the scientific facts didnt back up a rule to start with.
Now for a rule to happen Osha has to send out for comments for a period of time and boy did the comments fly in, over 40,000 of them....Osha has whats called PEL'S and limits for an 8 hour period of exposure to chemicals in indoor environments...[epa is in charge of outdoor air]
This is where second hand smoke really becomes a joke,remember its nearly 94% water vapor and air.....now lets get to the facts of toxicology and dose makes the poison:
According to independent Public and Health Policy Research group, Littlewood & Fennel of Austin, Tx, on the subject of secondhand smoke........
They did the figures for what it takes to meet all of OSHA'S minimum PEL'S on shs/ets.......Did it ever set the debate on fire.
They concluded that:
All this is in a small sealed room 9x20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.
For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes
"For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes
"Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.
Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.
"For Hydroquinone, "only" 1250 cigarettes
For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time
The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.
So,OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :
Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
WHAT! DILUTED BELOW PERMISSABLE LEVELS
By the way ASH dropped their lawsuit because OSHA was going to make a rule and that rule would have been weak and been the law of the land,meaning no smoking bans would ever have been enacted anywhere,simply because an open window or a ventilation system would have covered the rule.
Let me also tell you that the relative risk for shs/ets by the SG report of 2006 was a 1.19 ''EPA study is whats used to call it a carcinogen''......milks is a 2.43 and that glass of chlorinated water your about to drink is a 1.25 yet these things aren't determined to be a carcinogen....The gold standard in epidemiology is a 3.0....Now had the SURGEON GENERAL included 2 other shs/ets studys the relative risk for disease from shs/ets would have been nearer a.60-.70 meaning it would have a protective effect against ever getting disease.
But,what each of us has is years and years of exposure and the knowledge that our kids all grew up around shs and generations of others,yet we are here alive not dead from a lousy 30 minute exposure to shs as stanton glantz tries to claim.....thats another story and its just as crazy as all the rest of smokefree's claim about shs/ets.
Oh! have you heard the one about ''laugh'' thirdhand smoke or third hand drinking.
Like I said their claims border beyond that of any reasonable persons commomsence.
The next time you see a healthscare claim
consider the source.Especially if it comes from a government or non profit agency!
disclaimer; I am a victim of the smoking bans like tens of millions of smokers and non-smokers who liked to hang with their friends in a public accommodation. We have in effect lost our freedom of association because of the bans.
Property owners have lost their right to their property rights by these laws based upon psuedo-science and propaganda.I dont work for any tobacco company nor do I get anything but the satisfaction that I can make the smoke free activists cringe when the truth gets out.
Harleyrider1978