by According to CDC data, in 2018, nearly 14 of every 100 U.S. adults aged 18 years or older (13.7%) currently smoked cigarettes. This means an estimated 34.2 million adults in the United States currently smoke cigarettes.
Smoking, now a social stigma in the US, also connotes a certain level of commitment to one’s health and their level of intellect. However, this mentality has not always been as rampant across the US. Tobacco usage, surging in the mid 1900’s due to commercialization and Hollywood glamorization, was as well rather mysterious and unknown for its detrimental effects on long term health. By examining the relationship between the tobacco industry and the US government, one can see how a democracy can fail its population by prioritizing profit over science and public health. The US failed to provide well informed care for its population and has now fostered inadequate leadership over the public health and trust in science.
Much of the Tobacco craze stemmed from the publicized and glamorized usage by those in the limelight. In addition to this, the US government in the 1930’s classified the cigarette industry as essential, in order to authorize the inclusion of rolling papers and tobacco in troops’ rations (Lawrence, “Big Tobacco, war and politics”). When the Second World War presented another industrial crisis, the government stepped in again to conserve US production levels and bought the volumes equivalent to the UK export market, to protect its own farmers (Lawrence).
The US permitted tobacco and nicotine cigarette habits as they profited through the taxation of corporations. In addition, it was not until 1964 when the US surgeon general first released studies and information regarding the long-term health and threats of cancer to the American public (CDC, History of the Surgeon General).
The US actively chose to avoid publicly announcing the life-threatening effects of smoking. This was a failure of government for the American population. Capitalism was prioritized in this moment and the population has subsequently suffered as addiction and cancer rates have risen in the 1950 to 1970’s generations (CDC, Current Cigarette Smoking Among Adults in the United States). Government neglect of scientific information was a result of a cultural dialectical materialism which favored profit over humanity. Dialectical materialism, an idea from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles, states that scientific theories are branded by the ideologists of the culture they work in as “idealistic” or “bourgeois.” These scientists then chastise any who contradict them to the point of blindly labeling them traitors to science or cultural norms (Graham, 121).
Scientific culture within the US depends on government confirmation regarding threat levels and treatments. It is key that governments trust science and place it at the foundations of their policies, however it can also be detrimental when governments prioritize profit over public knowledge of science.
This failure reflects one of Richard Merton’s core beliefs. He preached the idea of disinterestedness to be essential to a democratic application of science in societies. Merton believed that in order for science research to remain unbiased and publicly productive, the motives of scientists needed to remain in serving the public good. Once scientists grounded their research in the quest for money and fame, science lost its credibility and importance.
Because the US government before the issuing of the first report of the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health in 1964, scientific reasoning was cast aside for cigarette sales and corporation profit. The US federal government’s handling of tobacco and cigarette use in the 1900’s shows how even democracies can fail their population when they subscribe to capitalism. Rather, democracies with an equal balance between health and economy may be able to thrive and remain healthy.
There is much to learn today with trusting science while remaining balanced in the quest for economic stability. However, we also must value the lives which are affected by the governments who make these decisions for them and the best way to do that is by incorporating scientific reasoning into our policies that allow for a healthier future.
Sources:
- https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/history/index.htm
- https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20nearly%2014%20of,with%20a%20smoking%2Drelated%20disease
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02991-w
- https://moodle.colby.edu/pluginfile.php/449113/mod_resource/content/1/2.%20Graham_Stalinist%20Ideology%20and%20the%20Lysenko%20Affair.pdf