Recipe for Addiction
New legislation cracks down on tobacco industry but cannot eliminate the addiction
Melissa Brabham
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The trail of dirt by the balcony on Alumni Quad used to have a patch of grass. After months of slowly eroding away from constant use, it has been reduced to dirt and rock. It’s known as the unofficial smoking area. The grass has stopped growing and been replaced with cigarette butts and ashes.
“Its Saturday night, time to start my routine.” Christopher Morgan a 22-year old junior from the University at Albany said while flicking his Marlboro light. Eat, take a shower, shave then smoke a cigarette. Morgan’s nights begin and end with a cigarette. “Marlboro lights have less nicotine in them but they give you the same high.” he said. Outside, wearing only flip-flops a shirt and a sweater, Morgan joined a huddle of other young smokers.
“I would die if my parents knew I smoked,” Jessica Grassley a junior at the University at Albany said. “They don’t have to say it, I know cigarettes are unhealthy.” she added. Morgan stayed quite among the other smokers but back inside he confessed that smoking cigarettes are not healthy but has become “A part of my going out routine… I won’t smoke for the rest of my life.”
According to the Center for Disease Control more than 5 million people die every year from tobacco use but those numbers are replenished by a constant flow of new smokers. And 1000 people under the age of 18 and 1800 of adults over 18 are daily smokers and the numbers continue to grow. Altria Group, which is one of the largest producers of cigarettes and tobacco in the US, spends millions of dollars on advertising to attract new customers with the hope that they will become life-time smokers.
Toxic Advertising
The Camel cigarette introduced Twisted Lime and Kauai Kolada flavored tobacco packaged in candy-like wrappers. It was an attempt to make cigarettes more appealing and acceptable but a law eventually banned flavored cigarettes from being marketed to younger audiences. “These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers,” Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of food and drugs, said in announcing the ban said in an article from the New York Times.
“I tried the vanilla flavored cigarette and they are really good.” Irena Broadwater, 33, from Long Beach said. “But I like smoking so it doesn’t make a difference to me.” she said. Broadwater started smoking when she was 14-years old because it helped her to calm down. In the health section of the New York Times, smoking can temporarily relive minor depression and produce a modest sense of well-being; which might contribute to why people start smoking.
Fourty years later
Before the surgeon general declared cigarettes a health hazard in 1964 they were advertised and packaged as if they were as harmless as a loaf of bread. A new law was recently passed by the Obama administration requiring cigarette companies to cover 50% of the front and back of tobacco packaging with proper warning labels. Some examples of the new cigarette warning labels are: WARNING: "WARNING: Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease."; "WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children."; "WARNING: Smoking can kill you.". But will this new packaging be enough to deter people from smoking?
And although the toxic recipe in cigarettes will not change, the new legislation aims to prevent more tobacco related deaths in the United States. "All along, we thought it never made sense that the most dangerous preventable cause of death was not regulated." Former Federal Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David A. Kessler said in an article from the Washington Post Web site. In other countries like Brazil and China, cigarette warning labels are more graphic. One cigarette warning label from Brazil has a picture of a man with a facial tumor caused by excessive smoking.
“It’s hard to quit.” Bonnie Edwards said after taking a long drag of her Benson & Hedges cigarette. At 69-years old Edwards, a retired middle school teacher from Long Island, has been smoking cigarettes since 1958 and has no plans to quit. “Of course it’s unhealthy but I’m addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes.” she said. It’s 3 a.m. now and the huddle of smokers on the unofficial smoking area has turned into a hoard of loud chain-smoking college students. Morgan is not there but undoubtedly is somewhere puffing on his Marlboro light with the less nicotine.