The Tobacco Problem: What Do You Think

uh 1969 you your self said if knowing the consequences they meaning the consumers continue choose to continue to smoke they're entitled to do so that right yes I have not Advocate that there be any total prohibition you just want to prevent them from smoking cigarettes with tar above a certain level I want to protect them as far as possible in that regard and to from themselves and to educate them as to what in what will be the results these consumers you protect choose to consume something you don't want them to consume you'll make a law against it is that right [Music] I need you MAA Victor M but what about the children oh Mna you know that I'm leaving tomorrow and after that oh I need a cigarette yes I need a cigarette yes yes yes yes yes yes yes [Music] yes there is in fact no safe cigarette by by by by by beautiful SM by [Music] if the cigarettes industry's economic power were as minuscule as that of the marijuana industry cigarettes would surely be illegal now I didn't enh half then that's the time when everybody says you know you should um and uh and you have to be cool to smoke cigarettes and uh and then you don't want to make a big fuss and then cough and make so like you've never done it before so you don't enh [Music] the technician is staining a microscop slide with cigarette smoke in order to see anything of interest it's necessary to examine the slide at a magnification of at least a thousand the rust-colored areas are tobacco tars and these are bits of unburned leaf other slides frequently show pieces of paper and even animal hairs in many respects cigarette smoke is rather like highly concentrated smog they contain certain gases in common such as carbon monoxide nitrogen dioxide and hydrogen cyanide additionally at least 15 substances have been isolated in cigarette smoke that definitely cause cancer in test animals this is a microscopic section of a human lung the little particles are being being carried along in a river of mucus these hairlike cells are called cyia they vibrate rapidly and force the mucus to carry harmful particles out of the lungs these rotating cells lie on top of some cilia they will be a gaug of how fast the cyia move when a small amount of cigarette smoke is dissolved in the mucus the cyia begins slowing down cigarette smoke is gradually paralyzing the cyia once the Celia have been paralyzed particles in the smoke can enter the lung tissue and bloodstream [Music] in the Orchard Park Labs nearly 10,000 white mice are treated with tobacco tar every day the purpose of the experiment is to try to develop strains of tobacco which are less harmful than those being marketed now it is thought that eventually they may be able to reduce the cancer causing potential of tobacco by about 20% meanwhile the mice continue developing cancers these mice have been on experiment for about 10 months theyve developed a number of tumors usually the tumors start out as relatively small benign lesions some of them however become large malignant cancers that will eventually go on to kill the mouse now as long as the tumor is growing only on the skin doesn't cause the mouse any particular distress but when the tumor begins to spread into other organs ultimately the mouse will die in this mouse you see in small tumor which is benign at this point and a large cancer now these tumors are produced in about 25% of all of the mice that we place on experiment with cigarette smoke this cell is cancerous it is dividing into three parts rather than two at far too rapid a rate it's this sort of uncontrolled division that results in tumors on the mice we are presently in somewhat of an epidemic of Lung Care cancer in 1914 just 371 people died of the disease then during the first war war the Army began giving free cigarettes to the soldiers The Habit quickly caught on and by 1970 some 60,000 people were dying annually from lung cancer the nicotine in a cigarette has several immediate effects because it's a stimulant it speeds up the heart one cigarette can speed up the Heart by as much as 21 beats per minute at the same time the blood vessels are growing smaller they are constricting this makes the work of the heart more difficult meanwhile inside the lungs cigarette smoke is causing the tiny air sacks to disintegrate the air sacs are surrounded by blood vessels and as they disintegrate the heart must work harder still to circulate blood through what remains of the lungs number of years ago we studied coronary artery disease in relationship to cigarette smoking coronary artery disease is a hardening of the arteries in the normal uh human being who does not have coronary artery disease his coronary arteries are wide and there are no plaques or yellow streaks along the vessel wall however when he does develop coronary arteriosclerosis there are yellow streaks along the entire course and along with those yellow streaks there are deposits of calcium we found that severe coronary artery disease was three times as frequent in the heavy cigarette smoker as in the non-smoker it may be interesting to see how some of the medical evidence is collected relative to cigarette smoking and disease this is a human lung one of thousands studied at the Veterans Hospital in East Orange New Jersey the purpose of these experiments is to study the association of smoking and empyema which is a slow disintegration of the lungs evidently there is a causal relationship between empyema and some substances in tobacco smoke lungs from people who died of all causes are examined in this research lab they have found that about one out of every four lungs has signs of empyema after the lungs have been sliced and evaluated they are compared with the medical records of the person it is no surprise that the vast majority of empyema victims were smokers well we have here a greated laminated uh sections of lung slices and uh here you see you can see a normal lung slice with the penam and attack and the air saxs are not destroyed and here you see a smoker's lung slice with the the airx completely destroyed they're actually holes you can see right through them huh could you tell me how frequent is this condition well this study here this room contains 8,000 slices approximately 8,000 slices and uh which represents about 2,000 patients and you can pick any one of these books out anyone at random and you can take you can and you can suum through it and you'd see many pages of slice is with empa we must come through all these [Applause] BS this is a typical clean lung there are no signs of cigarette smoking or extended exposure to air pollution compare it with this lung a few holes have appeared and we see signs of bronchitis bronchitis often signals the beginning of empyema statistically the chances are that this person was a light smoker or had just recently begun smoking the lungs of heavier smokers are riddle with holes empa can clearly be seen here I with due respect I was going to ask what the senator planned to do about hiar cigarettes that come over the Border say from Mexico after he has carefully limited the production of such cigarettes in the United States states are we going to have camel Runners replacing the rum runners of the 1920s now come on this is a practical and a serious problem certainly it's practic I don't see why do you want to make it humorous by talking about camel Runners we let's make it just a serious you want to make it and answer no you answer that one Senator I not answer that until I've got a chance to answer your first question on Mexico go ahead any product coming into this country can be required to form to any standard that we set in this country so you're going to have would you let me answer the question if we set a standard for our own tobacco industry certainly we will set it for all import back to Prohibition right I don't know this may get to some people but I feel that all smokers are weak in character that they're using I'm sorry I know that seems mean but I don't know I don't know of anybody that smokes that um I could call strong I I don't know it seems like they're using it to escape in some way or another when you picked up the cigarette right all of a sudden you started acting here I am Mr big shot Mr Cool yet when you didn't have a c your hand I put down an act Mr big shot Mr Co well you could fake it too day but I mean actually there was a noticeable difference in your personality you just started acting well you know here I am Joe cool you know you want me to put it out and act Jo doesn't matter no but still I mean it's giv you the big step yeah that's what you say I say you guys have a crutch that you don't smoke and that's why you're all big sh Mr cool how's that why cuz we can stand on our own two feet to our own problems without holding a cigarette yeah helps me get my mind off my whatever my problem is why can't you do something else more constructive instead of doing that like what what is there to do chw gum and rocks your teeth do something with your own hands drink I was be married that's what I was doing I was doing something with my hand what happens if I like it what's wrong with that well what about your friends I mean do would they influence you at all I mean if they couldn't stand smoking would you stop at all maybe around them just so I wouldn't lose friends but you want to be someone and be known kind of and like cigarettes become the way and like you think you can be Mr Big smoking a cigarette and like you hear about it usually in seventh grade and then eth and n nth the pressure comes on and you kind of decide and usually around Senior High you kind of grow up and see that they're no good and and the people that are smokers have have just their lungs are just filled with holes you can it doesn't take much intelligence to you know to say well did do they do they ever show any uh any people up there that don't smoke that have holes in their lungs how do you know that there are people that don't smoke that have lots of holes in their lungs that's true okay this is the only film I've ever seen that really made me never want to smoke again cuz I never I never knew anything about like those lung slices and everything and that you know that's really shocking well only some facts that's what gets people you know and seeing those mice too the seeing the mice with with the cancerous tumors on them and you're just sitting there going that could be me you know to see it you don't like it but you know as long as you don't have to see it this is the first really gross movie I've ever seen you know they show us little hard pumping away and there's a lot of people just they always talk about like the holes in your lungs and everything but you know I've never seen them before and they use big terms I completely disagree with you I think you know like if a guy has cigarette smoke on his breath smells good I like it I like you know if I go into the bathroom you know if you going to the bathro girl bathroom at school for one [Music]