Lennox Johnson who was conducting his own research into smoking – as early as the 1920s he was speculating on the likely long-term health effects smokers were exposing themselves to. ibid.
He had also devised a nicotine replacement therapy. ibid.
Within two years of starting their research Doll & Hill discovered there was a clear link between smoking and lung cancer. ibid.
Smokers displayed a remarkable reluctance to accept the science. ibid.
The tobacco lobby quickly found ways to counter the findings. ibid.
Cigarettes were also seen as essential fashion accessories. ibid.
More than half the British population smoked. ibid.
The smoker today is a diminished, anguished, exhausted creature. ibid.
You can’t smoke in a pub? Being a cunt is bad for your health. I’m just smoking a fag. Dom Hemingway 2013 starring Jude Law & Richard E Grant & Demian Bichir & Emilia Clarke & Kerry Condon & Jumayn Hunter & Madalina Diana Ghenea & Nathan Stewart-Jarrett et al, director Richard Shepard
5 million smokers worldwide die each year … 100 million smokers died in the twentieth century. The Tobacco Conspiracy: The Backroom Deals of a Deadly Industry, 2016
‘It is an epidemic that has been built on unparalleled corporate deceit … criminal negligence.’ ibid. Garfield Mahood, non-smokers rights association Canada
‘Why is cigarette smoking so popular and acceptable despite all the information we have?’ ibid. mother, ex-addict
94% of lung cancer occur in smokers. ibid.
‘The tobacco manufacturers have lied about the risks of their products, they have lied about targeting children.’ ibid. Mahood
Thus began the longest and most expensive public relations campaign in history. ibid.
‘A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers’ blanketed America. ibid.
The Big American trials of the 1990s when 46 states took joint action against the industry, suing for damages to public health. Executives of the seven largest cigarette companies were called to testify. ibid.
The industry agreed to pay $206 billion to avoid a verdict. It also promised to cease marketing to young people, but only in the US. ibid.
Tonight: with millions of Brits turning to e-cigarettes we ask, Do you know what’s in your vape? Are children being sucked in to this growing craze? Tonight: How Safe is Your Vape? ITV 2020
We investigate whether it really is a safer smoking alternative. ibid.
We’ve uncovered vaping products that contain unknown impurities; we’ve seen how easy they are to buy by the underaged, and how the sweet flavours are appealing to young people. ibid.
In the ’80s a number of things conspired to bring brown smokable heroin to Liverpool … 47% of black workers unemployed, 43% of white workers [news clip] … No opportunities whatsoever … Young people wern’t of any value to society, or so they felt. And then of course we had the Toxteth riots in ’81 … A visitor from the US came in the ’80s and said, This is like Beirut. This is like a bombed-out shell, a husk of a city and a number of other things … Liverpool Narcos I: Heroin ***** Sky Documentaries 2021
The game-changer was a cheap, high-grade smoking heroin became available. It was from Pakistan. And I’ve got Pakistani family. So I immediately kind of seized the opportunity to capitalize on that. Yeah. ibid.
Samples: if you went to source in Pershawa, you can buy a kilo over there for £2,500, 3K. Yeah, and that would be 80-90%. ibid.
It was like total destruction. It spread like cancer. Straightening out your foil, putting in your little bit of powder, at the corner where you wanted it. Getting a little pleat in your foil. Tilting it was little bit. Your flame underneath the powder. And then inhaling. Everything seemed to slow down a bit. You feel comfortably numb. No more worries, no stress, nuttin’, just comfy. ibid. Billy Moore
It was an epidemic that happened in this city. You know this city was flooded with narcotics. ibid.
Everyone’s on heroin? How the hell did that happen? ibid.
Teenage vaping is on the rise. Are vapes intended to get adults off smoking creating a new generation of nicotine addicts? Are some vaping companies deliberately targeting children? Panorama: Teenage Vaping: What’s the Harm? BBC 2023
Vapes first arrived in the UK nearly twenty years ago. Since then millions of people have tried them. ibid.