preview

Gun Labeling And Advertising Act Essay

Better Essays

Background

In 1881, James Bonsack invented the cigarette-making machine. Soon after, he started a business with James Duke. In their first year, they built a factory and made 10 million cigarettes. Five years later, they made 1 billion cigarettes. The first brand of cigarettes was called ‘Duke of Durham ' and was packaged in a box with baseball cards. Cigarettes main target consumers were men and later branched out to women. World War I (1939-1945) and World War II (1939-1945) gave the tobacco industry lots of business. Soldiers lived off of cigarettes when they were overseas. Similarly, the women at home also began smoking a lot of cigarettes. In 1944, cigarette production rose to 300 billion a year. Eventually, the Surgeon General of the U.S. notified the public about the dangers of cigarettes in 1964. He announced that the tar and nicotine caused lung cancer. So in 1965, the Congress of the U.S. passed the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, which states that every pack must have a warning label that reads, "cigarettes may be hazardous to your health." This was how the general public became more aware of the health effects of tobacco.
At first, smoking in public was allowed even around children. It was not until the 1970 's that people started to talk about the dangers of second-hand smoke. The people who wanted to make this change were the founders of the organization called Group Against Smoking Pollution (GASP). California was the home of multiple GASP

Get Access