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University Daily Kansan Thursday, March 26, 1964
Frightened Smokers Sneaking Back to Normal
Rv United Press International
By United Press International Jittery cigarette smokers may be puffing pipes in public and chewing more gum lately, but the great cancer scare appears to be wearing off.
Cigarette sales, which dropped as much as 30 per cent after the surgeon general's committee drew a link between cigarettes and cancer last Jan. 11, are starting to come back.
back. United Press International echeeked state tax officials and major tobacco wholesalers and retailers throughout the nation to determine what happened to cigarettes in the two and a half months since the government report threw a scare into the country's smokers.
Sales are still down in many areas. But authoritative sources in at least 12 states reported that cigarettes were starting to come back in March.
IN SOME BIG CITIES, retailers said cigarette sales were just like old times, and there were indications in other states that the drop in sales had reached bottom and an upwings was in the making.
One sign of the times was in Dalhart, Tex., where a one-man academy for high school students on the evils of smoking may not go into a second semester because of waning interest.
Lawrence Ashby, 87, a retired judge who said his father died of "tobacco heart" and his cousin of "tobacco fits," offered in January to give $2.50 to every tobacco-smoking student who enrolled in his class.
Eight girls, all non-smokers already, signed up and the judge said he isn't sure he will start another class.
There were these developments in the nation's smoking habits:
- DEALERS REPORTED that customers who tried to stop and couldn't were switching to king-sized filter tip cigarettes. The regular-sized, non-filter cigarettes were the worst sales sufferers.
- Smokers still trying to quit seemed to be switching to chewing gum. William Wrigley, head of the Chicago-based chewing gum firm
that bears his name, said the government reporting is having "at least a minor influence on sales."
- Cigar makers haven't had it so good in years. Industry spokesmen estimated sales increases would go as high as 30 per cent over last year.
- Newcomers to the stogie chomping habit were women who wouldn't have touched a cigar or a cigar smoker with a ten-foot pole three months ago. Women were puffing on dainty cigarillos, and the Cigar Institute of America estimated as many as 60,000 may have joined the cigar clan.
- SALES OF PIPES and pipe tobacco were as much as 50 per cent above normal. An Oklahoma City wholesaler said "it seems all the
new smokers went to the high grade" pipe tobacco.
Most states had a crucial interest in cigarette sales. At least 29 states get at least five per cent of their total revenue from cigarette taxes. New Jersey gets nearly 13 per cent of its revenue from tobacco taxes—top in the nation.
Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton's proposed $1.1 billion budget—drawn up before the government report on smoking was issued—may be thrown out of balance by decreased cigarette revenues. Scranton said estimated collections on the cigarette levy will total $4 million less than the $93.7 million originally planned for.
Other states with a big interest in cigarette sales were Illinois, where cigarette tax revenues dropped more
than $1 million since the report was made public, and New York, which scooped in $123.6 million in cigarette taxes last year.
FEDERAL REVENUE from tobacco taxes rose to a record $2.1 billion last year and the 47 states which levy a tobacco tax collected an additional $1.1 billion—also a record.
States where tax receipts or business returns showed cigarette sales climbing back up included Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, South Carolina, West Virginia, Indiana, Oklahoma, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Oregon.
Cigarette sales were still suffering in Maine, Delaware, New York state, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Utah, Texas, New Mexico, Nebraska, California, Alabama and Florida.
Other states reported cigarette sales leveling off and ready to start an upswing.
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