"For the first time on record, the rate of new cancer cases and the cancer death rate are both falling in America. There appear to be several reasons why this is happening, but perhaps the most important is also the simplest: Over the past several decades, men started smoking less." But is obesity the tobacco of the 21st century? Well, Hollywood has tobacco's back. How to lower smoking rates? Taxing cigarettes is the single-most effective way to lower smoking rates, particularly among youth. Check out the correlation on this map.
posted by cashman on Dec 1, 2008 - 33 comments

Smoke if you got 'em. Today is the Great American Smokeout, a time to reflect on how great people look when smoking, and the terrible things (NSFW) the additives do to you.
posted by plexi on Nov 20, 2008 - 82 comments

Harvard professor Allan Brandt has a book out, The Cigarette Century, detailing the rise of the cigarette in 20th century America and its continuing spread worldwide. Excerpted here, reviewed here. The same title was used on a very similar work in American Heritage magazine in 1992 that is also worth a look.
posted by TedW on Jul 13, 2007 - 34 comments

The Australian cigarette health warnings have pretty much filtered down to every retail packet that's bought now. They're pretty gruesome and some smoking acquaintances cover them up with stickers. I thought I'd have a look around and see what other countries warnings were like. None of them were pulling any punches except for Uruguay.
posted by tellurian on May 17, 2006 - 118 comments

Physicians and scientists around the world even go as far as to state that smoking leads to premature death. Don’t we all know someone who smokes constantly, even heavily, yet is still living — or has lived — to the mature age of eighty, ninety, and older? Furthermore, the MDs and PhDs state that smoking causes cancer and emphysema. If this diagnosis were definitive, wouldn’t these afflictions affect all smokers equally, rather than the small percentage that it actually does affect?
posted by Eekacat on Mar 23, 2005 - 78 comments