You Can QUIT Smoking
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You Can QUIT Smoking
William F Dankenbring & Ambassador College Research Department  

SMOKING is claimed to be the number-one preventable cause of disease.
   Yet, despite dire warnings, millions continue to puff away. Smoking advocates claim it is pleasing to the senses, enjoyable, fun. They claim it is relaxing, restful, and refreshing. Some even insist that smoking is harmless!
   What are the FACTS? Is smoking harmful to health? WHY do millions continue to smoke in spite of dire warnings from top health authorities? HOW can YOU QUIT?
   You need to read the answers in this vital, informative booklet! If you're a smoker, IT MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE!

Chapter One

"Till You SMOKE Yourself to Death!"

   "I WAS ONE of the fellows who walked a mile for cigarettes for 40 years. Results — no vocal cords. I just can see, and my hearing is about gone — all that goes hard on a man."
   So wrote a man from Jacksonville, Florida.
   Another person wrote, "I have been in a wheel chair since 1964 through loss of right leg one and one-half inches above knee due to poor circulation brought about through heavy cigarette smoking after I retired in 1962. I had been smoking since I was eight years old. The tar and nicotine was blocking blood vessels and arteries, just as rust blocked water pipes, cutting down the flow of blood causing gangrene to form in my foot. They had to go above the knee to get away from gangrene."
   These personal accounts reveal some of the suffering which is caused by cigarette smoking! But are they mere isolated incidents? What is the truth? Is smoking really DANGEROUS to health?

Smoker's Last Plea

   William Talman, a famous television actor, died of lung cancer not long ago. Six weeks before his death he taped a one-minute television commercial on the hazards
H. Armstrong Roberts — Cancer is a killer. Each year hundreds of thousands of new cases are diagnosed. Leading health authorities have determined there is a direct link between certain types of cancer and cigarette smoking.
of smoking. Talman had smoked three packs of cigarettes daily for his entire adult life.
   Talman, the losing prosecutor on the Perry Mason television series said, "You know, I didn't really mind losing those courtroom battles. But I'm in a battle right now I don't want to lose at all, because if I lose it means losing my wife and those kids you just met. I've got lung cancer."
   In the commercial against smoking, Talman recalled that when he was 8 or 9 years old his father offered him $1,000 and a gold watch if he could get to the age of 21 without smoking.
   "I lost that case before I was 12," Talman said. "Of all the cases in my whole life that I've lost, of all the bets I've lost, of all the chances I've blown, that one I regret the most today...."
   During the shooting of the ad, Talman was in obvious pain and was heavily sedated.
   Talman said, "So take some advice about smoking and losing from someone who's been doing both for years. If you haven't smoked — don't start. If you do smoke — quit. Don't be a loser."

A Smoker's Own Obituary

   "Cigarettes were the death of me," wrote veteran newspaper reporter Mark Waters six days before he died of lung cancer. He had smoked for 42 years, beginning at age 14. "I smoked two packs a day, inhaling most of the smoke," he said.
   Waters recounted in his own obituary how he never really got any real pleasure out of smoking. His mouth always tasted like a birdcage. Smoking brought on emphysema, making it hard to breathe. A few years before the end, he came down with a horrible cough, he became hoarse, and a nasty soreness came upon his left lung. "You have a lung tumor," the doctor told him.
   Waters concluded his own obituary, "Whether this story will stop anyone from smoking, I don't know. I doubt it. Not a soul I've preached to has quit smoking — not a single, solitary soul.
   "You always think: 'It will happen to the other guy; never to me.'
   "But when you get your lung cancer — God help you."
   The last words he wrote were:
   "I don't have a ghost of a chance.
   "It's too late for me.
   "It may not be for you."

The Army of Smokers

   The United States Department of Agriculture estimates there are about 70 million tobacco users in the United States alone. Dr. Daniel Horn, director of the Public Health Service's National Clearinghouse for Smoking and Health, estimated in 1968 that there were about 48 million adult smokers, with about 21 million ex-smokers.
   Said Dr. Horn, "The country can't afford to have people continue smoking when you realize that ONE-FOURTH of. the total illness in the United States can be attributed to cigarette smoking." (Emphasis ours throughout booklet.)
   Nationwide, from 1900 to 1962, per capita consumption of tobacco rose dramatically! From 1910 to 1962, cigarette smoking rose from 138 cigarettes per person (15 years of age or older) to 3,958 per person per year-a startling rise.
   Data provided by the United States Public Health Service shows that Americans smoked 571.2 billion cigarettes in 1968. Although this was a slight decrease from 576.2 billion in 1967, it still registered 3,988 cigarettes per adult.
   How many cigarettes is this? What does the figure 500 billion mean to you?
   If you laid all these 571 billion cigarettes end to end, you would have a long, supersized cigarette stretching more than 25,000,000 miles in length! It would stretch to the moon and back more than 50 times.
   If you wrapped these cigarettes around the earth, you would have a "tobacco road" about 25 feet wide, completely circling the world!
   Total cigarette production in 1967 was about 576 billion, and the number of cigarettes smoked that year averaged about 4,058 per person over 14, a rise of 100 cigarettes per person over 1962.
   The tobacco industry, obviously, is a big business. In 1963 Americans smoked 523 billion cigarettes, bought more than 7.1 billion cigars, used 69.5 million pounds of tobacco in pipes, bought another 64.8 million pounds for chewing and 32.5 million pounds of snuff. In money it came to more than $8 billion. In 1967 sales rose to $9 billion.
   Tobacco is the nation's fifth largest crop, after wheat, corn, hay and soybeans. It is grown on 750,000 farms, is processed in 550 factories in 30 states, employing more than 96,000 people. Over 4,500 wholesalers and 1,500,000 retailers are involved in selling the stuff to the consumer.
   Each year tobacco companies spend about $300,- 000,000 in various media on cigarette advertising.

Chemistry of Smoking

   Some 1200 different chemical compounds have been identified in tobacco smoke. One puff of cigarette smoke contains 15 billion particles of matter. Among them are many of the most noxious substances known to man!
   Here is a partial list: Nicotine, pyridine, methyl alcohol, ammonia, carbon monoxide, furfural, formaldehyde, cancerogenic benzopyrene, phenols, acetone, arsenic, acids such as formic, oxalic, citric, acetic, coffeic, hydrocyanic.
   Nicotine is one of the quickest, most fatal poisons known. A fatal dose is about 100 milligrams — about what one cigar contains. If 500 milligrams of nicotine were directly injected into the bloodstream, the person would be killed instantly!
   Tobacco "tars," of course, have been linked with cancer. They are carcinogenic. Tars are formed during the heating of the tobacco leaf. If a mouthful of smoke is blown through a handkerchief, a brown, malodorous stain can be seen — evidence of the tars.
   A smoker who uses about a pack and a half of cigarettes a day inhales into his mouth, pharynx, larynx and lungs about a QUART of tobacco tar in a year!
   Benzopyrene is one of the most powerful known cancer-causing agents in animals. Arsenic is another cancer-causing chemical found in cigarettes. A man who smokes a pack a day may take as much as 36 milligrams of arsenic into his body every year from smoking alone. The arsenic comes from lead arsenate, used as a pesticidb on tobacco plants.
   Every time a smoker smokes, these chemicals invade his system. One of the chemicals-collidine-is used for killing experimental animals. It causes paralysis and death. Another — prussic acid — can kill within minutes. Methyl alcohol causes first blindness, then death. Formaldehyde is used by morticians for embalming dead bodies. Tobacco has an arsenic content 50 times the amount legally permitted in food.
   Dr. A. C. Ivy, of the University of Illinois, has found that a person smoking a pack a day for 10 years inhales EIGHT QUARTS of tobacco tars during that time.

Effects of Smoking

   Is smoking really dangerous to health? If you smoke, what is happening to your body?
   "Dr. William H. Stewart, U. S. Surgeon General, estimates that someone dies from cigarette smoking in the United States every 105 seconds. The total, he said, is 300,000 per year — SIX TIMES the number killed in auto wrecks and one-sixth of the nation's total deaths" (UPI, Feb. 24, 1969).
   In one year, Americans reaped an extra 12 million chronic ailments, due to smoking cigarettes! A report released by U. S. Surgeon-General William H. Stewart in 1966 revealed that smoking was responsible for 300,000 extra heart attacks in the U. S.; one million more cases of chronic bronchitis or emphysema; almost two million extra cases of sinus trouble, and more than one million more stomach ulcers.
   The study covered 42,000 U. S. households and covered the period from July 2, 1964, to July 1, 1965. The study also claimed there were 306,000,000 more man-days (8-hour working days) of restricted activity among cigarette smokers than among non-smokers.
   More evidence of health hazards from smoking came from the Welfare Department. In a report to Congress by former Secretary John W. Gardner of the Health, Education and Welfare Department, it was concluded that:
   1) Approximately one third of all deaths of men between 35 and 60 are "excess" deaths in the sense they would not have occurred as early as they did if cigarette smokers had the same death rates as nonsmokers.
   2) Seventy-seven million days of work are lost each year in the United States which would not have been lost if smokers had the same rates of illness as nonsmokers! (UPI, July 12, 1967.)
   In September 7967, U. S. Surgeon-General William H. Stewart told a world conference: "The proposition that cigarette smoking is hazardous to human health is No LONGER CONTROVERSIAL. It's a scientific fact."
   At the world conference held in New York, delegates from 35 countries listened to world leaders and discussed what action could be taken to combat the menace of smoking to health.
   One speaker called tobacco smoking "the greatest man-made EPIDEMIC in human history."
   The Chief Medical Officer of the British Ministry for Health, Sir George Bodber, told the conference, "We can be certain that many more than 50,000 deaths a year in England and Wales are directly due to cigarette smoking."
   If these statistics are not impressive enough, listen to these facts.
   Dr. Hollis S. Ingraham, New York State's Commissioner of Health, declared that cigarettes are more lethal for Americans than all the bullets, germs and viruses combined!
   According to the Public Health Service, cigarette smoking can shorten life expectancy by eight years, on the average. Said the PHS, "... evidence herein presented shows that life expectancy among young men is reduced by an average of eight years in 'heavy' cigarette smokers, those who smoke over two packs a day, and an average of. f our years in 'light' cigarette smokers, those who smoke less than one-half pack per day."
   Speaking at the world conference on smoking, the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy declared, "Every year cigarettes kill more Americans than were killed in World War I, the Korean war, and Vietnam combined. Each year cigarettes kill FIVE TIMES [today, SIX TIMES] more Americans than do traffic accidents. Lung cancer alone kills as many as die on the road" (L.A. Times, Sept. 12, 1967).
   Dr. R. T. Ravenhold, director of the State Department's Population Service reported to the conference that the extra deaths caused by cigarettes and tobacco essentially equal the number of deaths caused by ALL infections, auto and other accidents, diabetes, suicide and murder. "Cigarette disease is now the FOREMOST preventable cause of death in the United States," he declared (AP, Sept. 12, 1967).
   It is time all the facts, statistics, and warnings were evaluated, and YOU determined what you are going to do about them!

Worse Than War

   Cigarette smoking has killed about three million Americans in the past ten years. In shocking contrast, only about 638,000 were killed in battle in all of America's wars, including the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam!
   Smoking brings sickness, disease and disability to twelve million Americans every year. In sobering contrast is the total number of wounded in ALL America's wars from 1776 to 1969 — a total of 1,500,000 wounded, or less than one eighth the "casualties" due to smoking in just one year!
   Truthfully, it could be said that today war slays its thousands, but smoking slays its millions!
   In Vietnam, it is considered a bad week of fighting if two hundred die. Smoking, however, strikes down over 800 Americans every single day!
   The chances of dying in war are limited to those who are fighting on the battlefield. But smoking stealthily slays people in all walks of life, in the relative "safety" of their own homes!

England's Epidemic

   Dr. K. P. Ball, consultant physician at Central Middlesex Hospital in England, spoke to the Royal Society of Health about the evils of cigarette smoking. He said: "This young upstart — barely a hundred years old — has already slaughtered a million of our citizens....
   "Let us be clear of the size of this epidemic. The cigarette kills more than 50,000 people every year in this country alone. This is more than double the total number of all accidents on the roads, in the home, and at work, as well as all suicides.... A half a million children now at school will die before their time of this infection if present trends persist... Every seventh child who becomes infected with this habit will perish from it. Cigarette smoking is by far the most important environmental cause of death today."
   Dr. Ball stated that in England at least 7,000 hospital beds are needed daily to care for the cigarette-induced cases of chronic bronchitis, lung cancer and coronary heart disease — equivalent to ALL the beds in the twelve London Teaching Hospitals!
   In regard to cigarette advertising, he declared: "It can not be right to persuade people to kill themselves — and advertising cigarettes is doing exactly that."
   Similar statistics could be cited for all nations where cigarette smoking prevails! The grisly, often untold story of death, agony, suffering resulting from smoking is being continually repeated in the wrecked lives of numerous millions every year!
   But in spite of the gruesome facts, and the countless lives lost, health authorities often feel handcuffed, hamstrung, and stymied in their efforts to do anything about the problem. They are up against a powerful foe a strong and wealthy opponent — and a deeply entrenched personal LUST of the flesh!

The Surgeon-General's Report

   January 11, 1964, was a crucial day for cigarette smokers. That was the day the President's Committee made its report entitled Smoking and Health — a thoroughly documented, researched, voluminous report. The Report traced the steady rise of cigarette smoking and compared it with the rise of several different diseases. The Committee evaluated scientific evidence based on numerous animal experiments, observations of thousands of patients and autopsy studies of smokers and nonsmokers, and several population studies.
   What were the salient conclusions of the report?
   Here were a few:
   In men who smoke cigarettes, the death rate from lung cancer is almost 1,000 percent higher than in nonsmokers!
   Smoking was found to be the most important cause of chronic bronchitis, increasing the risk of death from that disease and from emphysema.
   Cigarette smokers have a 70 percent higher death rate from coronary heart disease — the leading cause of death in the United States — than nonsmokers.

The Hammond-Horn Study

   For six years in the early 1950's, Dr. E. Cuyler Hammond and Dr. Daniel Horn conducted a massive survey for the American Cancer Society. The survey covered 188,000 American men. Over 22,000 Cancer Society researchers assisted in the monumental task of collecting and collating the mountain of statistics.
   From the mass of material, Drs. Hammond and Horn developed some astonishing facts and figures, which led to the incontrovertible conclusion that —
   (1) ALL SMOKING SHORTENS LIFE;
   (2) Cigarette smoking shortens life MORE than any other smoking;
   (3 ) The more cigarettes a person smokes, the GREATER RISK of an early death!
   The conclusions of the study were presented to a stunned audience of medical men at the 7957 convention of the American Medical Association.
   The most dramatic correlation the survey showed was between smoking and death from cancer and heart disease, the two dreaded killers today.
   The Hammond-Horn study exploded upon the American public like a bombshell. It showed that death rates from all causes combined are 68 percent greater for cigarette smokers than for nonsmokers. The death rate for less than half a pack a day smokers was 34 percent higher; for a half to a pack a day smokers, 70 percent higher; from one to two pack a day smokers, 96 percent higher; two or more packs a day, 123 percent higher than for nonsmokers.
   But what about specific diseases?
   Lung Cancer: Overall, deaths were 11 times higher among smokers than nonsmokers. But two-pack-a-day smokers ran about 20 times the risk of lung cancer as compared to nonsmokers. Even men who smoked less than ten cigarettes a day increased their chances for lung cancer by 5 times!
   Heart Disease: Cigarette smoking increases a man's chance of dying from a coronary attack by 50 percent — and the risk of a coronary fatality rose with the increase of cigarette consumption. Whereas those who smoked half a pack a day or less had 29 percent more coronary deaths, those who smoked over two packs a day had 141 percent more coronary attacks!
   Peptic Ulcer: Smokers showed a 116 percent higher death rate from ulcers of the duodenum. There were 51 deaths from stomach ulcers among smokers, but none among the nonsmokers.
   Other diseases: The death rate of smokers was 93 percent higher than nonsmokers for cirrhosis of the liver; 50 percent higher for cancer of the pancreas; 58 percent higher for cancer of the kidneys; 61 percent higher for cancer of the stomach; 75 percent higher for cancer of the prostate; 117 percent higher for cancer of the bladder; 352 percent higher for cancer of the liver and gall bladder.
   But the final BOMBSHELL produced by the Hammond- Horn report was the striking fact that when men stopped smoking, the death rate DROPPED AMAZINGLY! Light smokers who had quit the habit for ten years revealed a death rate almost as low as that for nonsmokers. Even heavy smokers who had kicked the habit had a death rate only HALF of that of men who continued to smoke!
   The truth should be plain. Smoking 15 hazardous to health — but if a person quits smoking, his chances of escaping disease rise almost miraculously!

CANCER Country

   The television cigarette advertisements feature magnificent country, beautiful lakes and streams, young men and women in the pink of health, strolling, happily smoking some cigarette. But this is not the true cigarette "country."
   The real cigarette country is the cancer ward of your local hospital, where smokers have undergone surgery for the removal of their throats, mouths, tongues, jaws, chins, noses, pharynxes...
   These miserable wretches paid a dear price for their smoking habit. But strangely, many of them continue smoking, faithfully puffin g away at Brand X or Brand Y.
   This is the real Cigarette Country. If you are a smoker, and want to stop smoking but haven't managed to muster the courage and willpower, take off a few hours and visit the local hospital, especially the cancer ward. Perhaps the miserable sight will be all the added spur and prod you need to quit smoking Now — before your turn comes up!

Chapter Two

The PUFF of Death!

   The evidence is all in. It is CONCLUSIVE!
   The health hazard from smoking "is flat, scientific FACT" declared Dr. William H. Stewart, Surgeon-General of the Public Health Service in 1967. "Establishing it and demonstrating it is no longer our goal."
   Cigarettes have been on trial, and found GUILTY!
   In spite of warnings, declarations, statements, and scientific studies, however 42 percent of the adult American population continues to SMOKE! About 50 million regular cigarette smokers puff away, oblivious to reality.
   However, there is some GOOD NEWS, too! The U. S. Public Health Service estimates there are about twenty-one million EX-smokers — including nearly one out of four adult men!
   Dr. Ashbell C. Williams, president of the American Cancer Society, declared in 1967, "'We must recognize that ours is a cigarette-ridden, cigarette-saturated culture." But he added, hopefully, that he believed half of all smokers "dislike the habit, would like to stop, but do not." One reason he cited for the "indifference" many smokers feel toward the danger is the $300-million-a-year tobacco industry advertising campaign.

"LIVE A LITTLE EXTRA" — Don't Smoke!

   In 1966 smoking directly led to 41,012 deaths from lung cancer, 28,045 deaths from other cancers, 145,956 deaths from coronary disease, 42,821 deaths from other vascular diseases (strokes, etc.) and 43,726 deaths from all other diseases (emphysema, bronchitis, etc.) — a total of 301,560 deaths.
   Meanwhile, in comparison, in the United States in 1966 there were 11,270 murders, 20,160 suicides, 53,280 deaths from automobile wrecks, 35,380 deaths from diabetes, and 128,180 deaths from all infectious diseases — a total of. 248,210 — over 50,000 deaths less than from tobacco!
   When you smoke, you take your life INTO your own hands! Smoking is a deadly game.
   Dr. Harold S. Diehl, Dean of Medical Sciences and Professor of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, in his new book Tobacco and Your Health: The Smoking Controversy, declared: "Another computation shows that the average heavy smoker — two or more packs a day — smokes during his lifetime about three quarters of a million cigarettes. As a result of this he loses 8.3 years — about 4.4 million minutes — of life. This amounts to a loss of almost 6 minutes per cigarette smoked: o minute of life for a minute of smoking" (p. 38).
   Think about it. Every minute you spend smoking, another minute of YOUR LIFE goes up "in smoke"!
   Therefore, if you smoke, you need to ask yourself the question: Do you enjoy life?
   Do you really want to LIVE?

Smoking Is Costly

   Computations reveal that for every dollar spent on tobacco, another dollar plus must be spent for cigarette induced disease or is lost due to missing work because of smoking. In 1967 about $9 billion were spent on tobacco in the U. S. In that same year, an estimated $11 billion were lost to the American economy because of cigarette deaths, diseases, and lost workdays! Therefore, when you total it all up, smoking amounts to at least a TWENTY-BILLION-DOLLAR SWINDLE YEARLY perpetrated upon the naive, gullible American public!
   Is it worth it?
   Over a million people in the United States are forced to lead restricted lives because of emphysema. It incapacitates 1 out of 14 wage earners over 45. A study of British physicians showed the death rate for bronchitis and emphysema for those who smoked 1-14 cigarettes a day was 6.8 times as high as that for nonsmokers; those who smoked 25 or more cigarettes a day suffered twenty-one times as many deaths from these causes as nonsmokers!
   During the next five years, predicts Dr. Edward A. Gaensler, Professor of Surgery at Boston University School of Medicine, emphysema will be responsible for the disability of twenty million workers (ibid., p. 93).
   All in all, today there are 11 or 12 million more cases of chronic illness yearly in the United States due to smoking.
   But isn't it strange — sort of gruesomely macabre in a way? If a doctor developed a vaccine that would prevent lung cancer, and protect you from emphysema, bronchitis, and heart disease — saving 300,000 lives a year — you know that there would be a maddening' STAMPEDE by millions to be inoculated with it.
   But even better than such a vaccine would be a simple step — just stop smoking!
   How many will take it?
   Any way you slice it, any way you look at it, smoking is COSTLY — one of the most costly habits you could have! The average smoker spends $7,000 in his lifetime on the smoking habit. A person smoking two packs of cigarettes a day spends upwards of $200 a year on his habit — or $2,000 in ten years, $4,000 in twenty years, and $10,000 in fifty years of his smoking "lifetime."
   THINK about it!
   Can you really AFFORD to smoke, when you add up all the costs, expenses for cigarettes, medical bills, decreased efficiency, increased nervousness, chronic illness, and ultimately perhaps terminal cancer?

"It Couldn't Happen to Me"

   Those are famous last words. The idea that a person couldn't have lung cancer or some other horrible cigarette- induced disease strike HIM, personally, seems to be a common attitude. Many reject the idea their own health could be affected, or endangered. Smokers seemingly don't visualize themselves suffering from cancer of the lung or gasping out their agony-wracked breath with emphysema. It always happens to the other guy!
   However, current statistics show that 75 of every 100,000 men will die this year because of lung cancer! Or, a total of about 350 of every 100,000 men will die from some cigarette-caused disease!

The Lung Cancer Peril

   Projections by the National Cancer Institute show that smoking alone could more than DOUBLE the number of lung cancer deaths by the end of the century. By the year 2000, smoking could cause as many as 125,000 deaths a year from lung cancer! But if the current doubling rate (each 10 years) continues, 500,000 Americans could die of lung cancer during the year 2000!
   Currently, each year more than 50,000 Americans die of lung cancer, 95 percent of them within five years of the time they contract the disease. An estimated 75 percent of all cases of lung cancer are directly attributable to smoking.
   The Cancer Society estimates that lung cancer will kill approximately 59,000 in 1969, an increase of 4,000 over 1968. Lung cancer, said Dr. William H. Stewart, "is the most common cause of death from cancer, and it is increasing at EPIDEMIC PROPORTIONS" (UPI, June 14, 1966).
   In 1966 the nation's top advisory panel on cancer, the National Advisory Cancer Council, said an "enormous MAN-MADE EPIDEMIC " of lung cancer has hit the United States as a result of cigarette smoking (New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 13, 1966).
   Only a few stubborn die-hards continue to deny the proven relationship between smoking and lung cancer. Most of them have personal "axes to grind." They simply cannot see the truth because they are blinded to it; or they will not believe it because they don't want to admit it.
   The Surgeon-General's Report declared in unequivocal terms: "Cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer in men; the magnitude of the effect of cigarette smoking far outweighs all other factors."
   "On the basis of tar tests... Dr. Alton Ochsner, who had previously noted that all of the men who came to him for serious lung surgery were heavy smokers over the age of 40, predicted that by 1970 the lung would account for as much as 50 percent of all cancer in men. One out of every two men with cancer would have cancer of the lung — equal to one out of every ten men living!
   "Lung cancer is rapidly approaching these catastrophic figures. It is moving faster than any other form of cancer, is growing faster than any other disease as a cause of death. In the U.S., the lung cancer death rate in the past quarter of a century has quadrupled for men, doubled for women" (Don't Let Smoking Kill You, page 71).
   In the early 1900's, lung cancer was a rare disease. By 1954 the death rate had increased 20-fold among men!

The Smoking Scourge

   When you carefully investigate the whole subject, and study the facts and statistics available, you can come to but one conclusion: Smoking is deadly — it is a menace to health!
   Cigarette smoking not only causes lung cancer, but has been implicated in chronic bronchitis, emphysema, heart disease, cardiovascular ailments. Tobacco can damage the nervous system, causing progressive blindness (a condition called tobacco amblyopia), and seems to be partially responsible for a loss of sexual vigor. Among women, frigidity can be due to smoking. Several studies and reports have indicated a greater incidence of frigidity, sterility, menstrual disturbance and miscarriage among smoking women.
   Dr. Virginia Apgar, director of research for the National Foundation of the March of Dimes, declared: "There are more than a dozen medical reports on heavy smoking (more than two packs a day) and its effect on the baby. It has been found that these babies are smaller than average for the length of the pregnancy — about a half pound smaller. Babies that weigh 5 1/2 pounds or less at birth have at least twice as high an incidence of birth defects.
   "It isn't just a lack of tatty tissue that makes infants of smoking mothers weigh less, investigators have found. These babies also tend to be shorter in length, indicating that their overall growth and development has been retarded during pregnancy. This may be a result of the nicotine which is known to pass through the placenta into the body of the growing baby before birth, or because the high level of carbon monoxide in the mother's blood reduces the amount of oxygen carried to the unborn child."
   Do you want your child to be born defective, smaller, retarded physically, or possibly even mentally, BECAUSE you CRAVED A CIGARETTE? What about it? If you don't care about your own life, think about the life of your unborn child, if you are an expectant mother!
   In physical fitness training for instructors of the British Army, it was found that in the 3-mile race an average of 3 times as many nonsmokers were among the first ten to finish the race, and 3 times as many smokers among the last ten.
   Smoking is incompatible with physical endurance, muscular power and aptitude to face certain emergencies requiring physical effort.
   But, little known to many people is the effect of smoking on the mind. Two thousand experiments were held testing the effect of smoking on mental responses. It was found that in all cases smoking lowered mental efficiency from 10 to 23 percent!

Pipes, Cigars and Chewing

   Learning of the serious menace to health from smoking, many change or switch to cigars, pipes, or some other habit. Is this the answer to the problem?
   No. The facts are that pipe smoking, cigar smoking and even tobacco chewing are as much — if not more — to blame for buccal cavity cancer as is cigarette smoking. Even before the turn of the century, doctors were convinced that lip and mouth cancers were likelier to be seen in pipe and cigar smokers.
   Dr. Alton Ochsner said, "Smoking can also cause cancer of the lip, mouth and tongue. In these cases, it is the smoking of pipes and cigars which is especially to blame."
   Dr. Clarence W. Lieb declared, "Pipe smoke, because of a greater fire area, is hotter and more irritating to the mouth and pharynx than smoke from a cigarette or a medium-sized cigar; it also contains more nicotine and other irritants." He also said, "Pipe smokers get cancer of the lips, where they usually hold the pipe; and tobacco-chewers, when they get cancer, get it where they usually keep the chew."

One Chance in Ten

   The American Cancer Society says, "ff you are a nonsmoker — your chances of getting lung cancer are only four in a thousand." But, says Dr. Harold Shyrock, "Continuing to smoke is like playing Russian roulette. The confirmed heavy smoker's chances of dying from lung cancer are one in ten."
   Is it worth it?
   Every day in the United States smoking causes 375 deaths from heart and circulatory diseases, ll5 deaths from lung cancer, and 250 deaths from other cigarette-related diseases! More than 800 die daily because of cigarette smoking.
   None of these diseases is pleasant. Cancer can be excruciatingly painful, horrible. Chronic bronchitis can be sheer torture. Buerger's disease (where the small arteries of the fingers and toes are obstructed) occurs al-. most exclusively in men who smoke. In its final stages, it can end in gangrene and force amputation of the affected part.
   Count the cost. Add it all up. It's not worth it!
   Therefore, if you don't smoke — don't start!
   If you do smoke — quit now, before it is too late!

WHY Do People Smoke?

   About 70 million people in the United States smoke, in one form or another. An estimated two million teenagers join the ranks of the smokers every year. There are an estimated five million who smoke two packs a day — about four percent of the adult population.
   When do people start smoking?
   Actual data suggests that few children begin smoking before age 12 — less than five percent of the boys and one percent of the girls, probably. From age 12, however, smoking gradually increases.
   At the 12th-grade level, between 40 and 55 percent of children have been found to be smokers. By age 25, estimates run as high as 60 percent of men and 36 percent of women (Smoking and Health, page 362).
   Dr. Horn estimates that 10 percent of later smokers begin to become regular smokers before their teens, and 65 percent during their high school years.
   Is it any wonder, then, that many cigarette commercials seem to feature youth, vitality, excitement, fun, and those things which are attractive to young people in particular?

Most Hooked While They're Young

   The chairman of the California inter-agency council on cigarette smoking and health revealed that ten percent of all fifth and sixth grade students in California smoke cigarettes (UPI, Jan. 13, 1968). Dr. Paul R. Baker said, "Children tend to idolize their parents and imitate them." He placed most of the blame on parents who allow their children to smoke.
   A survey in Fort Wayne, Indiana, showed that almost one of every ten pupils in the sixth through ninth grades smoked. The survey covered 12,000 students (UPI, Mar. 29, 1966).
   Nationwide, every day of the year 4,500 youngsters 12-17 years of age take up smoking, an official of the Health, Education, and Welfare Department disclosed.
   Statistics indicate that one boy in five in the United States begins smoking by the ninth grade, and by the senior year of high school 44 percent of the boys smoke. Overall, one third of the young people in high school are regular cigarette smokers!
   Why?
   Dr. Daniel Horn answers, "Children's smoking is largely dependent on parental example." In statistical terms, a youth is twice as likely to begin smoking in high school if both his parents smoke than he is if neither of them smokes.

The Great "Imitators"

   Indicative of the reasons children begin smoking is a survey of 1,307 school children in Hertfordshire, England, a few years ago.
   The survey revealed children began smoking:
   To feel big — 244.
   To copy adults — 221.
   To show off — 215.
   To appear grown up — 198.
   Because friends do — 124.
   To copy parents — 104.
   If you put copying adults and parents together, you find that 325 smoked because of the example of older people!
   If you don't want your children to smoke, what kind of EXAMPLE are you setting for them? Take another look at these reasons given by children for smoking. If you add "to appear grown up" to the two we just mentioned, a total of. 523 began smoking because of the fact that adults smoked! Children are the world's greatest imitators! "Like father, like son" is very true.
   Young boys and girls want to be "grown up." They want to be like Mom and Dad. They want to feel "big" and "important." Those are the underlying, basic reasons children begin smoking!
   It all boils down to vanity -a desire to exalt and enlarge the Self — to make oneself more important. This is vanity!
   YOU probably began smoking for much the same reason! Think back. That is, if you are a smoker. You probably started smoking because your parents did, or it seemed the grown-up thing to do, it was socially accepted, and — also — your friends and associates did it.
   Isn't that right?
   Vanity of vanities!

The Sheep Instinct

   Too many people are victims of society. They do whatever other people do. They follow the herd like dumb sheep. They don't think for themselves. They don't analyze the consequences or count the cost. And when it comes to smoking, the cost can be enormous — your life itself!
   What about it?
   If you are a smoker, the real reason you began smoking and have continued, is not because you really enjoy cigarettes — is it?
   No, be honest with yourself. Sure, you might think smoking helps you relax, relieves anxiety and tension. But does it? Medical evidence shows that on the contrary, smoking actually is a vicious cycle — it adds to anxiety, increases tension!
   The claim that smoking calms nerves is one of the biggest deceptions ever practiced!
   Dr. Clarence Lieb said, "Nervous smokers smoke to relieve their tension. This relief is only temporary. Smoking in turn increases tension. And... so goes this vicious circle."
   Dr. Harold Dingeman said, "Smokers suffer 76% more from nervousness than nonsmokers."
   Said Dr. Robert Jackson, "If one has a need for a cigarette... that's because he became the slave of a toxic product — and this need clearly proves that the poisons have started their deadly work. The more a man will continue to whip his nerves with such help, the more his nerves will become abnormal."
   All the tobacco does is appease the craving of the cigarette addict!
   Let's not kid ourselves. The reason people smoke, when you get down to it, is two-fold. First, they began in most cases because of the influence of other people who smoked, notably their parents!
   And once a person is "hooked" on smoking, he continues — not because of the relaxation and relief it affords, but — because he is psychologically, emotionally, mentally hooked on the drug! He craves the effect of the nicotine and the tars. He has become a whimpering, cringing, crawling, abject slave of the cigarette god!
   The cigarette is his master. He is its worshipful, adoring, trembling slave!

Truth About Filters

   But wait, you say-what about filter-tip cigarettes? Won't filter-tips protect your health — safeguard you from the danger of cancer?
   Filter-tipped cigarettes, dominating the market today, have a big sales appeal to smokers because they claim — either overtly or covertly — to cut down the amount of tar and nicotine and thereby are "safer" than regular cigarettes.
   The facts, however, show that filters do an inefficient job and in a great number of instances filter-tip cigarettes give a higher percentage of tars and nicotine than do regular cigarettes! (Don't Let Smoking Kill You, page 93.)
   A four-year survey conducted at Stockholm, Sweden, revealed that filter-tipped cigarettes are Nor always less dangerous than those without tips. The survey, published in the Swedish Medical Journal, analyzed the tar and nicotine yield of 35 leading American, French, British and Scandinavian brands. It disclosed that several filter-tipped cigarettes had a higher yield than ordinary cigarettes and that even tipped and non-tipped cigarettes of the same brand sometimes gave equal yields of tar and nicotine! (Reuters, December 11, 1968.)
   At a Congressional hearing on cigarette advertising claims, it was revealed that one manufacturer's regular-sized cigarette yields less tar and nicotine than the same manufacturer's filter-tip product! Another company put out a filter-tip that yielded less tar but more nicotine!
   In one case, manufacturers developed a filter-tip that was extremely effective — too effective for smokers! All it let through was a lot of hot air. Needless to say, the brand was not very popular until the manufacturer modified the filter, letting through more nicotine and tar!
   That, in a nutshell, is the trouble with filters. If the filter is good enough to remove the tars and nicotine, there is no "pleasure" in smoking — so why smoke? If the filter does let through enough of the tars and nicotine to affect the human body, then there is the danger of disease, cancer, and a horrible death!
   Studies reveal that very little of the tars or nicotine is removed from cigarettes by filters. The overall difference from one brand to another is negligible.
   For many reasons, therefore, no filter-tip cigarette can be considered to have eliminated whatever health hazard is present in smoking! In fact, some of the filter-tips are more harmful than regular cigarettes because of the lower-grade tobaccos they use!
   Dr. C. W. Lieb declared that the fact that the filters masquerade as an aid to health, while they are no such thing, is to his mind, "the shame of the filters."
   The Surgeon-General's Report states emphatically, "No METHOD of treating tobacco or filtering the smoke has been demonstrated to be effective in materially reducing or eliminating the hazard of lung cancer....
   "Present knowledge indicates that it is not possible to filter selectively, specific components such as carcinogens."
   For this reason, the report concludes, "... the individual person's risk of lung cancer can best be reduced by the elimination of smoking"!
   The answer is not changing to filters, or to a pipe — the solution to the cigarette peril is to STOP SMOKING!

Chapter Three

You Can QUIT Smoking — Here's How!

   TWENTY-ONE million people have successfully quit smoking. So can you, if you really want to! But how? Where can you get the necessary strength, fortitude, and willpower?
   Let's admit the truth. All kinds of gadgets, gimmicks, potions and medicines have come on the market purporting to help the smoker quit smoking. None of them has proved 100% effective!
   Gimmickry and gadgetry are not the answer. Pills, drugs, candy, chewing gum are not the answer. All these remedies miss the heart and core of the problem the smoker himself, and his attitude!

How to ENJOY Life

   Do you really want to enjoy life, its riches, thrills, and delights? Do you want to appreciate tantalizing aromas, the biting, crisp smell of fresh air, the spicy scents of nature? Then stop smoking! Give your lungs a chance to repair themselves.
   An astonishing thing happens when people stop smoking. Lung damage is reversed when men and women stop smoking. Body defenses come into play and destroy pre-cancerous cells! The lungs gradually turn pink again. But just one or two cigarettes a day prevents the healing process, and so does switching to pipes or cigars.
   In 1604 James I, King of England, published his famous Counterblast to Tobacco. He concluded the treatise by calling smoking "a custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, harmefull to the braine, daungerous to the lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse."
   A colorful description, no doubt. But today smoking has been proved beyond the shadow of a doubt to be loathsome, harmful, dangerous to the lungs — a serious public health menace!

Lame Duck Excuses

   A recent publication of the Clearing-house for Smoking and Health estimated that 51 percent of men 17 years old or older are cigarette smokers and 34 percent of women. The most common consumption rate is between 16 and 25 cigarettes a day.
   A pamphlet put out by the Public Health Service indicates that about 1.5 million Americans give up the smoking habit every year. The American Cancer Society estimates that there are now 21 million ex-cigarette smokers in the United States, including 100,000 physicians!
   These figures ought to be very encouraging, if you are a smoker who wants to quit. It obviously coz be done! But now?
   Cigarette slaves come up with many foolish excuses why they continue to smoke.
   One says, "I'll smoke until I get into trouble and then I'll quit and be okay." The trouble is, by the time the smoker knows he's "in trouble," he has waited too long to do anything about it — it's too late!
   Another says, "No, I'm not going to give up smoking. I may die young, but I'll die happy." What confidence — but in what? Will he really "die happy"? He may think he's happy now, but he's ruining his life, missing out on the real pleasures of living and experiencing life, minus the cigarette cough, the chronic illnesses from smoking, and the final agony of lung cancer or bronchitis!
   But the usual excuse is similar to what one housewife said: "I'd like to give up cigarettes, but I can't. The habit is too strong." Or as another put it, "I'm concerned about the reports, but I've tried to stop and I couldn't."
   A Kansas City switchboard operator declared, "I've known for a long time, smoking is terrible for your health, but I've never been able to quit. I don't suppose this will make any difference."
   Another woman said, "I really think I shouldn't smoke, but it's kind of hard to quit. I'm going to think about it." And another who admitted she smoked three packs a day confessed, "I'm scared. I don't know if I can stop, but I will try — for the nth time."
   Take a good look at these excuses for continuing to smoke especially the last five who admitted they wanted to quit but felt they couldn't. Why couldn't they? Why were they virtually helpless slaves of the nicotine habit? Why were they so pessimistic about quitting?
   Perhaps YOU feel basically the same way. How, then, can You quit the tobacco habit?
   Let's understand!

WHY Do You Smoke?

   In order to conquer the smoking habit, you must be willing to face up to the real reason why you smoke.
   Dr. Daniel Horn, director of the National Clearinghouse for Smoking and Health, took a survey of some 5,000 smokers to uncover the reasons they smoked. He found that 10 percent used cigarettes as a stimulant, while 8 percent simply enjoyed lighting and handling a cigarette. From 30-40 percent used smoking to achieve a pleasant form of relaxation (there are many better ways to relax!). Another 40-50 percent smoked to relieve anxiety and tension. Many of these, he found, go on to become addicted chain smokers!
   The last category of smoker is the one finding smoking the most difficult to give up!
   Forty percent of smokers are "heavy smokers" — they are compulsive smokers!
   For them quitting is not so easy!

The Cigarette ADDICT

   All regular smokers tend to develop some degree of dependence on tobacco, some to the point where significant emotional disturbances occur if they are deprived of its use (Smoking and Health, p.350).
   Why is this?
   Says Dr. C. W. Lieb, "Botanically speaking, tobacco is a drug, a narcotic. And unlike alcohol or opium, its 'soothing' qualities do not take effect until the smoker has become addicted to it. The 'soothing quality' is in large measure a relief from the irritation caused by drug craving.
   "Those who smoke, however, do not usually face up to realities so honestly" (Don't Let Smoking Kill You, p. 11).
   Dr. Lieb asserted, "But nicotine is a drug, and as one continues to smoke, one gets used to it. One becomes, in a word, an addict who develops higher and higher thresholds of tolerance. The confirmed heavy smoker can handle amounts of nicotine that would poison a non-smoker" (p. 19).
   Tobacco is not physically addicting, in the same way as heroin or cocaine or the barbiturates. Nevertheless, it is addicting in the sense of the user becoming DEPENDENT on it, craving its effect, becoming habituated to its use. The smoking habit becomes COMPULSIVE in some heavy smokers because of psychological dependence on it!
   The cigarette addict, therefore, although not addicted in the same way as a heroin addict, does rely heavily on tobacco and thinks he cannot do without it. His mind is addicted to it.
   The addict sometimes calls his cigarettes "coffin nails," or "gaspers." He might admit he smokes "like a furnace." He almost invariably begins his daily routine with a cigarette. His day begins with a cough, a gasp, and a lit cigarette between his teeth!
   Such smokers may become addicted to smoking in the same way alcoholics become addicted to alcohol. To them, cigarettes seem to satisfy an urgent psychological need. The cigarette addict believes that smoking helps him keep calm under tension or in a stress-filled job. Because of this, it is very difficult for him to abandon the cigarette habit.
   But even the "addicted" smoker can overcome and quit the habit. There is hope for all smokers!

Here's How

   The first thing to do is realize why you smoke. Then, you must think of all the reasons why you should Not smoke. If you really try, and perhaps write them out on paper, you could think of dozens of good reasons why you should not smoke!
   What are some of the reasons? First, of course, there is the threat of lung cancer or other fatal diseases; also, the nonsmoker has more energy and vitality to enjoy life; his mind can function better; he saves money. Other reasons to quit are to prove you have willpower; to set the right example for your children. When you stop smoking, your food will taste better. Your throat won't be continually clogged with phlegm. You will get rid of the hacking cigarette cough. Actually, you will gradually begin to feel much less nervous, even though that may seem hard to believe. The first few days after you quit, you might feel more nervous, but gradually the nervousness will diminish and you will be calmer and more poised.
   Remember, smoking is actually a "crutch" to many people. It helps them "escape" stress and strain and tension. Smoking is one of the channels of escapism available to people, today, but which has a fatal kickback — a deadly boomerang effect on the smoker!
   When you quit smoking, you will begin to enjoy life much more. Breathing fresh air will be a pleasure; smelling the wonderful odors of nature will tantalize your olfactory nerves. You will sleep better. No more danger of accidents, or fires in bed. No more ugly cigarette butts lying around the house.
   When you wake up in the morning, you will begin to feel like a NEW MAN, or a new woman! You will have a feeling of intense satisfaction and pleasure and freedom from the slavery of the tobacco habit! Your life will be healthier, happier, more joyful and abundant!
   All these things will become yours, after you conquer and kick the cigarette habit — completely!
   Some of these blessings will come gradually. Some will become apparent very soon.
   Think of these benefits from not smoking. Think of the gruesome cost of smoking. Form in your mind the strong desire, motivation, and resolve to quit smoking!
   Do these things, and you will have made a good beginning in stopping smoking. But there is more that you must do, if you want to make sure that you completely overcome the vile, noxious habit.

Plan Out Your Strategy — AVOID TEMPTATION

   Realize before you begin that giving up cigarettes may be a major project, for you. Depending on the extent of your habit, it may require firmness of determination and tremendous personal effort!
   But the reward is certainly worth it.
   Therefore, face up to the fact that at first, when you quit, there will probably be more nervousness, tension, and a craving for tobacco. Face the fact that smoking has had a deathlike hold on you, and to overcome it will take time, effort, and a certain amount of suffering. But realize that you can do it! And the final result is worth it for you!
   Always keep your goal in mind. Never let it grow hazy, or disappear from your view. Keep your eyes on the goal!
   When do you usually smoke? Face these particular times of temptation by avoiding them as much as possible. Don't foolishly put yourself in a situation when you might compromise with your goal, where friends or relatives might persuade you to give in "just once." Chances are, if you do you will be hooked once again, right back where you started! So don't take a chance on it.
   It may be tough sledding for a while, but with help there is no doubt — you can do it!!
   You must realize from the start that one of the hurdles you must cope with is our smoking society your environment. Cigarettes are advertised everywhere, and your friends and relatives probably smoke. Prepare your mind to face this difficulty squarely. Don't give up to outside pressures. Determine within yourself that nothing — yes, nothing — will deter you from the path you have set!
   As you proceed, you might reinforce your behavior by giving yourself little rewards along the way. This might help make the pathway somewhat easier for you.
   Also, smoking substitutes (fruit, raisins, chewing gum, or such things) might help you a little and get your mind off cigarettes. Fruit would be a good substitute. These things, however, do not take the place of your own willpower and sheer personal motivation to overcome smoking. They are merely stop-gap measures which may provide a little help along the way.

Stop COMPLETELY

   Some have found, too, that deep breathing and exercise helps overcome smoking, by getting the mind off the temptation and onto something more worthwhile.
   The basic key to remember, however, is simply this: When you quit, quit completely. Stop all smoking. Use the "cold turkey" method. Tapering off almost never works!
   The "tapering-off method" only spreads the agony of withdrawal over a long period of time. As one man put it, "Tapering down is about as humane as cutting a dog's tail off by inches so it won't hurt so much."
   Some few may quit smoking successfully by "tapering off." We cannot recommend this method, however. It is too risky — and doesn't work for most people!

The Help You Need

   If you smoke and really want to overcome the habit, then STUDY this booklet carefully. Absorb its message. Let its meaning sink in deeply. Scrutinize the pictures which graphically portray the effects of smoking. Take it SERIOUSLY!
   Don't try to shrug it off, or justify your problem. Admit the TRUTH and determine to CHANGE! Remember — it is your life.
   If you need help to quit smoking, besides this booklet you are reading, then be sure to read our other literature which reveals the laws of health, success, and developing willpower.
   We have a free booklet entitled The Seven Laws Of Success — full color, profusely illustrated, practical and vitally interesting. It will show you how to set the right goal (in this case, quitting smoking), how to develop the D-R-I-V-E you need to accomplish that goal, how to develop resourcefulness and perseverance and stick-to-itiveness!
   This booklet will really help. The reprint article entitled "The Seven Keys to Radiant Health" may also greatly help you.
   Also, if you are a Christian, you will want to write for your free copy of our article "Should a Christian Smoke?" You will find it very interesting, giving many Scriptural principles on the subject and showing just what the Bible say about smoking. It says more than you probably suppose!
   All this literature will be sent to you free for the asking, as a service in the public interest by Ambassador College.
   Your life is your own' It is up to you whether to stop smoking or to continue puffing — that lethal weed. What decisions are YOU going to make, knowing that it will affect your health, and possibly the health of your children?
   Whatever decision you make — you must live with it — or possibly die with it. We earnestly hope you make the right decision!

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Publication Date: 1970
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