Tobacco: Still Smoking

The U.S. tobacco business faces a dilemma that no huge industry has ever before confronted. The cigarette, its prime product, is increasingly under fire as a peril to life and health; yet it continues to enjoy a king-sized market. While many of the nation’s 70 million smokers may be trying to quit, the tobacco industry has no intention of doing so. After the Surgeon General’s report, the cigarette makers last week withdrew behind a smokescreen of secrecy and agonized over the next line of defense.

Behind that line stands much more than tobacco. The $8 billion-a-year business affects dozens of manufacturers, 400,000 farmers, and 1,500,000 grocers, druggists and other retailers. It buys one-quarter of the nation’s foil, is the third biggest user of cellophane and one of the largest consumers of paper products. Its $250 million-a-year advertising budget helps to support the nation’s communications media—newspapers, magazines and, notably, television. Tobacco taxes earn more than $1 billion for the 50 states, more than $2 billion for the Federal Government.

Bills & Bans. The industry is used to attacks, but the latest blast was the strongest ever because it carried the force of Government and called for “appropriate remedial action.” Congress is considering six bills that would tighten Government controls over cigarette sales, label cigarettes as injurious, or force manufacturers to list the tar and nicotine contents on their packages. The bills have little chance of passing soon, but the Federal Trade Commission figures that it already has the powers to get tough. Last week it proposed to ban advertising that makes smoking out to be manly or glamorous, and to force manufacturers to state in their ads and on their packages that cigarettes are dangerous. Some cities took independent action; St. Louis decided to enforce an old law against smoking by minors, and Eastland, Texas, voted a dubious ban on selling or smoking cigarettes. Even more worrisome for tobaccomen is the long-range prospect that stronger Government reports and sharper public reactions can be expected later. Already three small U.S. life insurance companies have begun to offer policies with boosted benefits for persons who have sworn off smoking.

Well before the Surgeon General dropped his bomb, the manufacturers were employing new economic tactics. Having diversified into such things as razor blades and canned fruit punch, they are rolling out new pitches and products to keep their main business growing. Philip Morris and P. Lorillard, taking a leaf out of Raleigh’s old book, recently have begun backing some of their brands with gift coupons (47,185 Alpine coupons for a mink stole); Liggett & Myers recently brought out its triple-filter Lark brand. Six out of ten U.S. smokers have already switched to filters, and last week Surgeon General Luther L. Terry, pushed to amplify some confusing statements on the subject, said that filters offer “a promising avenue for future development.”

Rushed by Air. The cigarette makers’ pack of troubles meant opportunity for others. Sales of cigars rose across the U.S., and cigar stocks climbed on the major stock exchanges. Tobacconists everywhere reported an unprecedented surge in the sales of pipes; demand for bejeweled little pipes for ladies multiplied so fast that distributors rushed their shipments by air freight. Among the biggest gainers were the anti-nicotine preparations. Bantron, the largest-selling smoke-curbing drug, could not keep up with demand from its distributors, and neither could Nikoban and Ban-Smoke.

Despite the headlines and obvious warnings, tobacconists last week noted only a slight drag in cigarette sales. Because cigarette makers get sales reports from the field with extraordinary speed, they will know within three weeks the precise extent of the damage—if any.