I was born in 1947, the war was over , unemployment was high as the baby boom had yet to start to drive the economy. A coke or a coffee was 7 cents and a pack of cigarettes was 20 to 25 cents but many people rolled their own so a pack was probably a nickel. Homemade cigarettes would not continue to burn if placed in an ash tray so you could come back to it, while purchased factory made continued to burn down, so the smoker tended to smoke the complete cigarette and developed into a chain smoker. Smoking a pipe was distinguished and indicated a life of leisure, a man with the time on his hands to spend keeping a pipe burning . Smoking a cigar showed a man who had a bit of money and the position to afford complete disregard for others ( W. C. Fields). Workers in the foundry used chewing tobacco tucked up inside the gums and upper lips while cowboys in the movies could ride a horse and roll a cigarette with one hand, very impressive and tobacco companies were advertising everywhere. The whole world smoked , men, women , doctors , teachers and children in the school yard and everywhere : inside the house, inside the car, in all public places including restaurants and theaters and buses, and in passenger airplanes ( although only in the smoking section. ) The actors in the movies and later on TV, the coach and trainers at the hockey game and the players before and after the game , and the beautiful people and the well known / famous people / our heroes on posters and in magazines smoking.
My mother and father, grandmother and grandfather, smoked in the house and car so I was addicted to nicotine before I was five and before I ever smoked a cigarette which was when I was eight. People thought that it had medicinal properties, helped them relax and think and certainly was necessary after a big meal or with a drink. My grandmother said that because she did not inhale the smoke it was harmless because her sister the nurse did that also because it kept virus away, although my grandmother was not sure what a virus was, maybe a kind of bacteria.
This basically continued through the 1950s and 1960s until finally research , education , petitioning and sanity started to slowly make a difference and laws were put into place. The damage in humanity that was the toll of this all became so obvious and so costly and so pathetic that change was past due . I have smoked for 68 years. I have used nicotine patches, nicotine gum , hypnotism and tapering off, but even with the success of not smoking for 3 months it always came back . In the world at large , chewing tobacco use resulted in cancer of the mouth and lips, cigars and pipes the same, lung cancer, asma, heart attacks , stroke, babies born with problems and billions of dollars that could have fed the world , up in smoke. My grandmother died at age 60 of "angina" my grandfather 68 after several strokes by heart attack , followed shortly by my father in the same way. In the previous generation their family had lived into the high nineties .
Now I see discussions about trying nicotine. That is why great stock market crashes and world wars happen every 80 to 90 years, because everyone who would remember is gone. Run , run as fast as you can. you can't catch me. I am the stinky cheese man . In memory of them all.
Be happy
Professor of Neurology Andrew Lees says if he had PD he would chew nicotine gum
Nicotine patches
Be careful.....
