Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette

It's pretty hard to smoke in public in Canada today. Workplaces, stores, theatres, restaurants -  all are off limits. In Toronto there's a bylaw that forbids you from smoking on the outdoor patios of restaurants and bars. There's even talk of restrictions in people's homes and cars. And we've all seen the warning pictures on the sides of cigarette packaging: horrifying images of what smoking can do to you. 

 Rewind looks at smoking in Canada, and the controversy, concern and conversation that have surrounded it for the past hundred years.

A report on smoking from 1969 showed that more than half of all Canadians smoked.  According to Health Canada, by 2012 the national numbers had dropped to 16 percent. It was back in the early 1960s when medical professionals were first starting to make noise about the undeniable link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. In 1963, Jean Hines spoke about it  with Dr. Alton Ochsner on the CBC Radio program Speaking Personally. Dr. Ochsner explained that as a medical student in the 1920's, lung cancer was so rare that he saw only one case of it. Yet at the time of the interview, he was seeing 10-12 cases of it a week. He pointed to "lurid" cigarette advertising that continued to attract young people to smoking by glamorising it. He hoped to see the day when advertisers ceased to present smoking as "manly, healthy, or pertaining to love."

"Cutting out smoking gradually is like amputating a leg one inch at a time. There's only one way to do it, and that is to cut it out completely."

                                                                                             In 1964, several months after that interview aired, the US Surgeon-General published a major report on smoking and cancer. It concluded that cigarette smoking was related to higher death rates in a number of disease categories. It was finally determined that the relationship between heavy cigarette smoking and lung cancer was undisputable.                                                                                                                                                                                     

One early supporter of the idea that smoking was dangerous was Edward Drewery of London, England. In 1964, he was concerned about the health of his employees. So at his office he doled out nicotine pills to help to stop cigarette cravings to any employee who wanted them. He paid for this himself, and spoke about  his mission with CBC reporter Elizabeth Binks on Assignment in 1964.

In the early 60s when people were starting to link cigarette smoking and cancer, there was an uptick in the number of people smoking pipes. Those numbers included women. The reasoning for the switch was that  it was believed smoking pipes presented a safer alternative to cigarettes. At the time, the notion of women smoking pipes seemed like a shocking trend, but England's Dunhill Pipe Manufacturing Company jumped on board by producing a more feminine style of pipe. Some were made with different coloured mouthpieces, while others were encrusted with diamonds or rubies. The Chairman of Dunhill Pipe Manufacturing Company, Mary Dunhill, acknowledged that while more women were buying and smoking pipes, she suggested that pipe smoking was something that most women would likely not embrace. Nancy Bacall covered the story for the CBC show Trans-Canada Assignment in 1962.

"Personally, I think beards and pipes are more for men than women."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           The public conversation about smoking continued for years. Still, it took more than a decade before governments started to ban smoking in public places. The first city in Canada to introduce an anti-smoking by-law was Ottawa. The year was 1976.

Gradually, the concept of non-smokers rights became an issue. For the first time, second-hand smoke was considered more than just a nuisance. Both the health risks and the health care costs incurred to manage them were now on the radar. CBC Radio's Morningside got in on the conversation a year later, in 1977. 

By the 1990s, the dangers of smoking were well known, but the tobacco lobby remained strong. Although pro-tobacco lobbyists knew they couldn't deny the health risks associated with smoking, their strategy in supporting the industry was to push the focus to jobs, cross-border cigarette smuggling, and loss of taxes. The government remained conflicted because, although the tobacco industry remained an enormous money maker, the smoking epidemic placed staggering costs on the Canadian  Healthcare system.

Warning labels have been mandatory on cigarette packaging for decades, but in 1993 the government of Canada instructed manufacturers to put dramatic warnings, and then pictures on the sides of cigarette pack to deter people from lighting up. But it didn't happen without a fight. In 1993, CBC Radio's The House reported on the story.

With public smoking bans becoming common place in North America by the 1990s, some entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to appeal to smokers. How about travelling on a plane where you would be allowed to smoke to your heart's content? Edward Hall called it "Freedom Air." He was a retired pilot who put his savings and retirement fund on the line to get an airline that catered to smokers off the ground. He spoke about his plan with Ann Medina on CBC Radio's  As It Happens in 1993. Although there was interest from travellers around the world, the idea never took off.

Smoking might not be so popular these days, but that doesn't mean the urge has left us altogether. Smokers may have turned to pipes as an alternative to cigarettes back in the 1960`s, but these days, some smokers are turning to "e-cigarettes". In fact, this smokeless alternative became so popular last year that the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year for 2014 was "vape", which means to "inhale or exhale vapour from an electronic cigarette or similar device."

As unhealthy as we know smoking to be, it can't be denied that cigarettes have inspired artists and musicians for generations. One such artist is Canada's own K.D. Lang. In the early 1990s, she released an album of songs entirely about cigarettes.