by Robert M. Traxler
The United States Surgeon General says that any alcohol use is detrimental to your health and contributes to at least six types of cancer.
This announcement reminds me of the 1960s when the Surgeon General said smoking causes cancer in 1964 after more than five centuries of tobacco use (introduced to Europeans by native peoples of the Americas) and the medical community telling us smoking tobacco was good for us.
Indeed, anecdotal evidence proved this. People who smoked had fewer cases of malaria and yellow fever, but we did not know at the time the smoke kept mosquitoes away, and thus gave us less exposure to those diseases. In 1964 people laughed at the Surgeon General’s report saying things like, “sure, concentrated tobacco painted on mice caused cancer in mice, but we have no proof it is true in humans.”
In 1966, when warning labels were placed on cigarettes (even then people laughingly called them cancer sticks), we were very slow to believe it. The warnings were rationalized in dozens of ways and the majority of people kept smoking. Filter tip cigarettes were made and marketed as safer, and people kept smoking.
The Army placed cigarettes in our C-Rations so we could get four free cigarettes per meal. We were slow to condemn smoking; it took years of education and awareness to make it less than politically correct. Ash trays were in movie theaters, on airplanes and in public places. It is hard for us to believe how much tobacco was used in the past.
The media put on a full-court press in schools to condemn and even shame smokers. Public laws were passed making smoking difficult, and very high taxes were placed on tobacco, making it an expensive as well as dangerous and dirty habit.
We will see if the use of alcohol goes the way of tobacco. We will see if the politically correct crowd goes after alcohol as hard as we did tobacco.
A good question is, will we ever go after marijuana smoking in the same way we have tobacco? There are 69 compounds found in both marijuana and in tobacco that contribute to cancer. The difference is that the majority of people do not wish or choose to believe marijuana is bad for you.
A friend, well known to the readers of this publication, has told me that smoking marijuana is good for you, and it is medicine for many. Sounds like the anti-weight loss and stress-calming properties of tobacco called good for us by the deniers in the past.
The medical community has made a link between obesity and cancer, a quandary for the politically correct progressive community (along with marijuana). Fat shaming is a cause célèbres for the progressives; anti-fat shaming positions are being filled in organizations in their Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices nationwide.
Will we have politically correct cancers like those from marijuana and obesity, or will we educate and use social pressure against all cancers? Time will tell. My opinion.
