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Show COURT THE CIGARETTE MENACE j , - Perhaps the most far-reaching, the most menacing and the most popular of the dope evils of today is that of cigarette smoking. smok-ing. And while its evil effects are well known attempts are now being made by all classes of people to extend its use into every class of society. The cigarette was once very unpopular. It was detestable and had all kinds of hard things said about it. But in the hands of Big Business, and yielding enormous returns to its manufacturers, it gradually worked its way into fashionable society. so-ciety. And now it is almost unpatriotic to say anything unfavorable unfavor-able about cigarettes. The cigarette has been growing in popularity for a number of years, but it made its greatest gains in the year 1917 when newspapers news-papers and other agencies almost split thor sides in extolling the merits of the cigarette. The work of raising money to buy cigarettes cigar-ettes for the soldiers became almost as important as that of the Red Cross. As a result of this big patriotic boosting the consumption consump-tion of cigarettes in 1917 had an increase of over 700000,000 over that of 1916. That means that thousands and thousands of boys were induced to join the crowd of smokers. T'hat meant a big increase for the cigarette makers and on account of the increased demand the price has been raised accordingly. It was a great thing to send the boys some free cigarettes while many, many other little incidentals might have been sent them which would-have would-have been helpful instead of harmful. It would have been even better to have sent the light wines. Only a small percentage of the people who have access to alcoholic beverage become helplessly addicted to its use, but with cigarettes ther is no half way ground. If you smoke at all you are a regular smoker and you are distressed if forced to do without it even a day. So all the boys who entered the army are being coaxed to take up the cigarette-dope habit. And it will stick with them just like the opium habit. The cigarette now holds the highest place on the tobacco list. It is now perfectly proper, according to fashionable society, to smoke cigarettes anywhere and everywhere. No one is supposed to be backward about smoking a cigarette in a parlor, and in the presence of ladies. That fact has been established. Again the cigarette cig-arette has been boosted by the moving picture shows. The star characters always smoke cigarettes. That is really one of the important parts of the picture the graceful manner in which the actor lights and puffs bis cigarette. If it's an old man he generally gen-erally smokes a pipe, but all gallant young men must smoke cigarettes. cigar-ettes. Imagine if you can seeing a moving picture without seeing clouds of smoke. It carrie the impression that a man cannot be a hero or even a gentleman unless he smokes cigarettes. Why is . cigarette smoking so important to moving pictures? We don't know, but we suppose there's a reason. |
