Dale Griffis

I can remember collecting two-cent pop bottles and purchasing cigarettes for twenty-five a pack. In today’s market with smoke-free restaurants, bars, businesses, and the price of over $5.00 a pack, the smoker is looking for ways to quit. Everyone can remember the TV commercials of Lucky Strikes and the Marlboro man.

What happened to these commercials? The cigarette manufacturers were using addictive chemicals to “hook” the consumer. The law suits followed and the ads are gone forever from the airwaves.

Anti-smoking laws have made the marketing of smoke free products a billion dollar industry while the cigarette manufacturers are losing money. How do the cigarette companies advertise today? They are banned from the television networks and radio airwaves, so they use direct mailings. Almost weekly, I receive a coupon book in the mail for $2.00 off Marlboro, Newport, or Camel cigarettes. The direct mailing really does make you feel as though it is cost effective to smoke.

Many healthcare facilities have adopted a smoke free campus and they will not hire you if you smoke. Cleveland Clinic, CCHS, employees were given the opportunity to quit, the CCHS provided the employees with several products & smoking cessation classes to help the employee quit smoking. Many smokers did quit. Since the Cleveland Clinic is the number one heart center in the world, marketing and PR went a long way to promote itself as the number one heart institute. The PR was free and shed a positive image portraying that CCHS was promoting a healthy lifestyle.

The faux pas of the cigarette industry is that its largest stockholders are the insurance companies. Today a smoker may pay as much as four times the premiums for health insurance and life insurance than a nonsmoker.

Each pack of cigarettes has a surgeon General warning, which has changed over the years, the warning now states, “cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide”. In the past, the warning stated something like cigarette; smoking may be dangerous to your health. Is it no longer dangerous to smoke?

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