by Hanna M. Jagow

Created on: December 03, 2009

My husband died in 1998 from smoker-related cancer. First in his lungs, then his liver. He was all of 58 years old, and had been smoking since he was 9. When he started smoking, the tobacco companies had the world convinced that nicotine was not addictive, and smoking made you a "Marlboro Man." He smoked Camels, and towards the end of his life, was not able to walk a mile for anything...

During the 60's, I worked in a Veteran's Hospital as a clerk, typing biopsy and autopsy reports for the pathology department. At that time the doctors did not have proof that many of their cases had been killed by smoking, but suspected it highly. The docs always emphasized in cancer reports that the person had smoked, how much and how long. These docs also suspected that all the "atherosclerosis" deaths were related to smoking, although they could not prove it scientifically at the time.

Since many people began smoking when false information was being perpetrated by television ads, magazine ads, and movie starlets and beefcakes, it is any wonder it was socially acceptable everywhere? Since people who made cigarettes were spiking every twentieth smoke with extra nicotine to increase addictive tolerance, knowing exactly what they were doing, it seems unreasonable to blame the victims.

Those who are convinced to light up now are still being deceived. Since the toll taken by nicotine and all the additives in cigarettes does not create an instant, clearly visible decline in health, young people buy the nonsense that blowing smoke is somehow sophisticated and "cool." Cigarette companies pander to the impulsiveness and short-sightedness of the young in order to continue to poison them. The current state of our economy and the multiple crises being dealt with by an over-burdened government have put this issue on a back burner, but it is my belief that at some point our collective conscience will emerge and those who sell our children for a buck will be held accountable.

Nearly every person who learned of my husband's death would ask "Did he smoke?" as if lung cancer was something he decided to try. The company he worked for where air quality was sometimes lethal was not open to lawsuit because they could blame the cancer on his smoking. How handy. In my own mind, I think it was about half and half. If he had not worked where he worked, having stopped smoking for the last six or seven years, he may still be alive, and his granddaughters would not be missing one of the most delightfully smitten grandfathers they could know.

I do not know how people who make, sell, or profit from the smoking industry can sleep at night, and I think that sooner or later, we as a people will get tired of the hype and the lies, and do something about it. Where can I sign up to join that movement?

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