Oversmoking?

Tobacco companies set a new cigaret production this year. They made 258 billion tax-paid cigarets in their fiscal year ended June 1944, 13 billion more than in record-breaking 1943. They produced more billions for the Army and the Navy. But despite this fabulous production, the U.S. public has oversmoked its way into a national shortage.

Shoppers in Dallas, Texas, checking at newsstands, bars, drug stores and hotel of the lobbies, failed to find a single package of the so-called top brands--Lucky Strike, Camel, Chesterfield, Philip Morris, Old Gold. Big jobbers reported that ship ments from factories were from 10 to 50% "below normal."

In Los Angeles, smokers cultivated their local tobacconist as in the hungriest days of meat-and-butter scarcity. This month, Detroit's Cunningham's (chain stores) got about 70% of its July 1943 order. Asked what brands were short, an Atlanta jobber answer replied, "Lady, not to give you a short answer--all of them." Five times in five minutes the cigaret-counter girl at a Walgreen store in Chicago repeated wearily, "We have no name brands." Only in Columbia, S.C. was there an oasis in the cigaret-short South.

Cigaret manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers all agreed that increased consumption was running ahead of increased supply, with the shortage resulting. Contributing factors: shortage of labor in some cigaret-producing centers, a dwindling supply of shipping containers, vacations, strikes.

Army procurement officers, perfectly willing to share the blame for the shortage, claim that their buying has leveled off.

(In the first half of 1944, more than a billion packages of twenties were bought for resale through domestic and overseas post exchanges.) Shortage of tobacco, cited by some company officials, also has little to do with the current bareness of dealers' counters. The tobacco supply worries the leading companies. Their current in months' inventories are production, sufficient for whereas about 20 stocks to 23 of aging tobaccos normally are maintained to equal a three-year supply!

While the 1943 crop was below the 1938-42 average, 1944-5 crop is expected to top last year's by 20%. Thus manu facturers can continue to draw on present stocks and continue to maintain production at record-breaking levels, while the U.S. continues to smoke more than ever.

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