50 Years Ago: The Bad News about Cigarettes became Clear – To Some

The headline from the Greensboro News & Record reminds us of Virginia Slim’s slogan, “You’ve come a long way [down] baby.” Millions have died prematurely and unnecessarily.

From the days of a liberated Eve expressing her freedom to eat what she wanted, millions of rebellious youth said No to mom and yes to peer pressure to smoke, drink, do drugs or have sex, but Oh, the pain and suffering later.

A German proverb says, “Ve get too soon oldt and too late schmart.

It comes down to our own willingness. After all, the tobacco companies still will not admit their product ruins health. The question is, What evidence are we willing to accept and are we willing to learn from others?

Someone said, kissing a smoker is like kissing an ashtray. Why didn’t Hollywood get this straight 100 years ago before the US government let tobacco companies gift the GIs shipping off to war with cigarettes and returning hooked?

Hindsight proves the government is so stupid.

  1. They thought smoking (though unnatural) was okay, and may be a money-maker by allowing it, but taxing the tobacco companies. Bad #1.
  2. Then they subsidized the tobacco grower to help him grow tobacco profitably. Bad #2.
  3. Then they subsidized health care because tobacco causes heart and lung disease. Bad #3.
  4. NOW the government wants to control the whole medical scene. BAD #4.

The government can’t even run the postal system profitably, what makes them think their control of the medical care system will work? Probably they are not convinced, but the trillions of dollars in the system makes their hand in the cookie jar an irresistible temptation.

Just as telling lies becomes a way of life to some kids to evade responsibility, the government does this so well–You can keep your doctor. You can keep your health plan. It will cost less…Lies!

We are probably at the end of freedom as we are inducted into a system that will force us to have National ID that we rejected under Hillary 20 years ago–a foreshadow of when government will mark, number and control everyone as suggested in Revelation 13:16-18?

For a short documentary of the lies and our impending loss of freedom, watch this short video:

But it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. The title of this article pays tribute to then US Surgeon General Terry who reviewed thousands of pages of medical studies to release his damning report on tobacco 50 years ago.

But 150 years ago, Ellen White, a humble woman blessed by God with insight wrote, “Tobacco is a poison of the most deceitful and malignant kind, having an exciting and then a paralyzing influence upon the nerves of the body. It is all the more dangerous because its effects upon the system are so slow, and at first scarcely perceivable. Multitudes…have surely murdered themselves by this slow poison.”

As a young medical student, I appreciated a pharmacology lecture that described those effects of nicotine above (“exciting” by stimulating the neurons and then “paralyzing” them as a result of the depolarization from excessive stimulation).

Ellen White republished the information in what some physicians (myself included) believe to be the best book ever written on the topics of health and happiness. Written a book of biblical wisdom, it is both profound and non-denominational. It may be read online. The chapter dealing with tobacco, is Stimulants and Narcotics.

It has been this author’s privilege to help hundreds of smokers to stop smoking using the famous 5-Day Plan to Stop Smoking that was developed by a physician and a minister when the Surgeon General made his report 50 years ago. Since then, millions have quit successfully. If you still smoke, why not give the suggestions excerpted from the above book and give your New Year’s Resolutions a noble thrust by clicking here.

And if you happen to used coffee or “soft drinks,” click on Caffeine: Worse Than You Think.