Is Smoking Worth It? (1962)

away from the tremendous pressure and there's a tremendous pressure on teenager to smoke turns he he sees people telling him to smoke if you listen to the radio watch television read the newspapers or magazines wherever you turn the teenager must smoke it's a nice habit it's a mature habit but the thing is it does for me it gives you a satisfaction it relaxes you I enjoy smoking I but people who do smoke and have been smoking one of the reason you want to SM was not because when you satisfaction the first time I know well the majority of people say they got sick to their you I've heard many people who said this also the being either more sophisticated or looking sure of yourself or being grown up looking at it frankly aren't we all just talking in the dark sming well let's look at some f then we'll return we know that while our death rate generally from all causes dropped 18% during the past 30 years the death rate from one cause lung cancer increased by 9 153% in Europe too there was a sharp increase in lung cancer deaths and many countries are becoming alarmed about it was cigarette smoking which had become increasingly popular in the past 50 years in some way responsible 25 separate studies were begun in 10 countries in each study patients with lung cancer were asked about their smoking habits with such questions as you smoke cigarettes how many packs a day do you smoke how many years significantly every study found an association between smoking and lung cancer clearly the cigarette was a major suspect in the United un States another type of study was undertaken questionnaires about smoking habits were distributed to men in good health filled out and returned to the American Cancer Society for tabulation the answers of more than 187,000 men were processed for almost 4 years regular reports as to whether each man was alive or dead were received and recorded during those four years more than 12,000 of the men in the study died from various causes in each case the cause of death was noted the men who died of lung cancer were grouped according to the number of packs of cigarettes they smoke today those who never smoked rarely died of lung cancer whereas men who smoked half a pack or less a day had a seven times greater chance of d dying of lung cancer than did those who never smoked after to one pack a day smokers eight times the chance one to two packs 18 times the chance and two or more packs a day 21 times the chance of dying of lung cancer there were more deaths from lung cancer among regular smokers wherever they lived in rural areas towns and suburbs small cities and large cities air pollution in cities it seemed made relatively little difference there was another important finding deaths from coronary heart disease this country's greatest killer also increased steadily with the number of cigarettes smoked above all this and other studies proved that the more cigarettes one smokes the greater the risk of dying of lung cancer some countries began educational campaigns to warn all cigarette smokers of the risk of lung cancer England Denmark Sweden and Russia among others [Music] what have scientists been able to find out about cancer normally the human body is made up of cells like these which reproduce themselves by dividing but the reproduction is always under control in this way new cells are continually developed to replace the old worn out ones however cancer cells like this large one don't develop into normal body tissues they are wild cells that have escaped the control of the body and multiply so rapidly they destroy the surrounding healthy cells evidence had revealed Beyond a reasonable doubt that cigarette smoking is the major cause of lung cancer but how smoking caused cancer had to be determined to analyze what cigarette smoke contains this cigarette smoking machine was built by scientists of the Sloan ketering Institute for cancer research it mechanically Puffs each cigarette in turn ands the smoke in glass tubes the smoke contains a tar how much tar varies with different kinds of tobacco the effectiveness of the filter and how far down the cigarette is smoked the unburned tobacco collects extra tar from the smoke drawn through it so smoking the second half produces far more tar than did smoking the first half the tar in the Smoke condenses after a Time on the bottom of the tubes mostly in the right one here as a dark stain smoking two packs of cigarettes produces the tar in this solution the tar from cigarette smoke was applied repeatedly to the skin of mice this shows that it can and cause cancer scientists then tried to find out what it is in the tar that causes cancer it took years for them to separate these chemicals from the tar in pure Crystal form chemicals that can cause cancer how much of these chemicals remain in your lungs after you smoke a cigarette well here's a demonstration in the dark all three glass tubes looks alike a lighted cigarette is placed in the center tube now the smoke is drawn from the cigarette directly into the liquid and cancer causing chemicals in the Smoke dissolve in the liquid under ultravalet light cancer producing chemicals glow brightly in the center tube now the scientist will first inhale cigarette smoke and then exhale the smoke into the liquid in the tube on the left the glow in the left tube is much weaker because up to 90% of the cancer producing chemicals remain in the lung of the smoker what do these chemicals do inside the lung below the throat the bronchial tubes Branch out deep into the lungs the membranes lining the bronchial tubes are normally protected by tiny hairs called cyia which constantly sweep a layer of mucus and na4 and particles caught in it up and out of the lungs when cigarette smoke enters it weakens paralyzes and eventually destroys the cyia action the lung cells unprotected by cyia movement can now be injured by the chemicals in cigarette smoke some cells may become cancerous reproduce [Music] themselves and spread to other parts of the lung studying this chest x-ray is Dr Charles wfl Jr chest surgeon at the Francis Delafield hospital when doctors see a shadow like this in the lung and they know that the patient has smoked for a long time the diagnosis is cancer of the lung until proven otherwise of all the patients who come to the hospital for treatment of cancer of the lung only one out of 20 Will Be Alive 5 years later because too often the disease is spread too far at the present time the best treatment is the removal of part or all of the lung almost every man I've operated upon for the most common type of lung cancer has been a smoker and I know that this is the experience of other surgeons no I know from my own uh experience that I've read about the the health dangers of smoking but uh I just I don't close my mind to them but at the age of 17 I just can't be disturbed by the fact when I'm 60 it might harm me knowing or at least feeling that that if I ever want to stop smoking I will I think I'd be greatly Disturbed if a Time came when I'd want to stop smoking for any reason and I couldn't but I I just am fairly confident that I could stop if I really wanted to how difficult is it to give up smoking let's hear what a psychologist in Norristown Pennsylvania thinks Dr M Powell Lon I worked with a group of intelligent and responsible adults who all were United in the wish to give up smoking they were bound to The Habit they couldn't give it up on their own so they joined in this group experiment let's hear from two of them about it Dr guber is a college professor who successfully gave up the hab it Mrs heidleberg is a housewife who gave it up for a while but she went back on it again why do you think you wanted to give it up uh Mrs heidleberg well when I started to smoke uh I was not aware of the health risk involved but uh today I'm a mother of two children and uh I would very much like for them not to smoke be for health reasons I feel I should set an example to them I'm very unhappy about it when you try to stop and can't stop don't you get don't you feel sort of guilty about it that you're letting yourself down and letting other people down as well yes naturally as I remember starting to smoke it was much easier to start than it was to stop I uh we sort of slip into it and uh at age 20 uh it doesn't really mean anything because uh the relationship between smoking and health or longevity uh uh is too remote I think and even even if these statistics were known when I was uh when I was 20 I don't know how much difference it would have made because uh at 20 the possibility of uh dying of lung cancer or anything of this sort at age 50 or 60 is too far away but then when you get to be 40 or 50 uh that event is no longer so remote and one becomes a little anxious about it I I know certainly I was anxious about it but uh it's no longer so easy to so easy to stop and uh so when my wife volunteered me into this group uh there wasn't much I could do about it uh certainly there are the uh the good things about stopping that is you get rid of the um cigarette cough and the pains in the chest and food tastes better and fresh air smells sweeter and your wind is better but to stop great many difficulties it's they're all the what some people I call the withdrawal symptoms that is the uh and uh it's it's just an awful process and it's not it's not easy I don't think one gets over it easily depends upon the individual and the fact that your parents or other people have smoked and no longer like it yet can't stop smoking doesn't mean necessarily that I'll uh there a time will come where I want to stop and I won't be able but I think it's evident that there have been many many people who have want to stop smoking and haven't been able to stop should you say well I'm going to stop smoking now because maybe 20 years from now I want to stop and I won't be able to no I I think that uh should stop smoking now because he realizes the danger involved in smoking I think one of the major reasons why these are some of the varying opinions about smoking held by some teenagers consider the facts you have seen your decision to smoke or not to could One Day become a matter of life or death to you it deserves some thought is smoking worth it [Music]