Cigarette smoking—A remedy

Cigarette smoking—A remedy

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE 1, 452-453 (197’2) Letters to the Editor Cigarette Smoking -A Remedy Sir: There have been proposals put forward to establ...

131KB Sizes 4 Downloads 255 Views

PREVENTIVE

MEDICINE

1, 452-453

(197’2)

Letters to the Editor Cigarette

Smoking

-A

Remedy

Sir:

There have been proposals put forward to establish guidelines for less harmful smoking products and habits. I have a few suggestions which such a group might wish to consider for study. Both the possible action and the means by which it might be put into effect would need study to estimate the potential benefits and potentially harmful effects. 1. Market cigarettes which contain less tobacco-perhaps like Russian cigarettes with long cardboard holders and rather small tobacco content. Cigarette manufacturers might be induced to try marketing such cigarettes for which the unit price and profit could be maintained. 2. Market cigarette packages containing fewer than 20 cigarettes-say 5 or even 3. Some smokers who desire to discontinue seem to do so by carrying few cigarettes with them. After a period of reduced consumption, a certain number seem to become non-smokers. The availability of minipacks might aid persons who try this procedure. Companies might be persuaded to provide smaller packs, or induced to do so by some reward system, or compelled to do so if existing statutes (or new ones to be enacted) authorize regulation of package size. 3. Reduce the number of retail distribution points where cigarettes are sold. A study made perhaps 20 years ago by the Regie Nationale de Tabac of France showed higher per capita cigarette sales in, I think, Switzerland than in France. The difference seemed to be accounted for, in part, by the limitations on retail sales places by means of licensing in France as contrasted to the ready availability of cigarette sales places in Switzerland. The licensees in France could be assumed to be opposed to removal of license restrictions for they would be more influenced by their own sales rather than by the total national sales. They would tend to restrict competition. Local jurisdictions might be induced to institute a licensing plan. 4. Limit the availability of cigarette vending machines. As with retail licensing, fewer available places of sales might reduce total sales (and hence, consumption). Since in many jurisdictions sales of tobacco are prohibited to persons less than a stated age, vending machines which are not under direct observation of a sales person could be held to be illegally in operation. 452 Copyright @ 1972 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

LETTERS

TO

THE

EDITOR

453

5. Require that licensed tobacco retail dealers post conspicuous notices of their licensed authority to sell tobacco in the form of: cigarettes chewing tobacco pipe tobacco cigars The association of cigarettes with snuff and chewing tobacco may suggest that cigarette smoking may be esthetically undesirable and may be in process of becoming largely a thing of the past. 6. The use of added taxes on cigarettes has, I believe, been ineffective in reducing sales. The potential effects of reducing or eliminating cigarette taxes might be examined. Such a move might have an effect of manifesting a serious governmental effort to diminish cigarette consumption. An added possible effect might be to “cheapen” cigarettes and thus weaken the advertising appeal of elegance, “fine tobacco,” and similar sales promotions. 7. A study of the means of employing labor which may be displaced by reduced sales of cigarettes and of corresponding action programs of the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, and HEW seems desirable. I wonder whether efforts to induce persons to diminish or to stop smoking should be accompanied by more direct efforts to diminish cigarette sales. They are not the same things, although, if successful, they lead to the same result. (As long as prohibition is avoided, the danger of illegal importation or bootleg manufacture seems rather remote.) I am certain some experts in manufacture and marketing might be found who would be willing to join in serious study of cigarette sales and consumption. Yours sincerely, William

Allergic

M. Schmidt,

M.D.

Reactions

Sir:

I am compiling case reports of allergic reactions to biting insects, i.e., mosquitos, fleas, kissing bugs, bed bugs, gnats and flies-including horsefly, sandfly and deer-fly. I am also interested in reactions to fire ants. I would like physicians to supply me with case reports of those patients who have had reactions to such insects. Include in your reports, the history of the type of reaction and complications, if any; the immediate treatment; if desensitization were attempted, what were the results? Please send to: Claude A. Frazier, M.D. 4-C Doctors Park Asheville, NC 28801 Sincerely, Claude

A. Frazier,

M.D.