Cigarette Hangover

As representatives of 71,000 North Carolina tobacco growers met last week in Raleigh's Sir Walter Hotel, they filled the air with their troubles as well as tobacco smoke. The drought had hit most of them hard, postponed the harvest a full two months; growers in the state were hustling to get the big leaves into their curing barns before the first frost came. Moreover, the quality of this year's crop had suffered, and prices were down. To Agriculture Secretary Ezra Benson, the growers sent their suggestion for a cure: acreage allotments for 1954 should be cut by 5%.

Tobaccomen were even more worried by the first sustained drop in U.S. cigarette consumption in 20 years, off 5.5% in the second quarter from 1952. Though 1953's total may still be higher than last year's, the rate of increase has slowed from 5% a year to a mere 1% (see chart). Tobacco stocks, by the latest count, totaled 1.9 billion Ibs., up 7% from a year ago.

Some tobaccomen thought the blame for the slowdown should be put on the cigarette companies, and especially the new filter cigarette publicity. Cried Grower-Warehouseman Fred S. Royster, president of the Bright Belt Warehouse Association: "The public is being frightened from tobacco by outlandish medical claims by some of the manufacturers. Much of this advertising is plain silly."

Added Market Specialist Phil Hedrick of the North Carolina agriculture department: "It's defensive advertising that's doing it. A medical authority says, for instance, that there is a high incidence of lung cancer among heavy smokers, and immediately the tobacco companies rush to the defense. Instead of saying that cigarettes relax you, comfort you and soothe the nerves, they deny that their brand will give you a disease . . . TV has made it much worse. They blow smoke in a test tube and all that sort of stuff. It looks as if they're putting tobacco in a chemical laboratory to see if it will kill you. I don't think folks paid much attention to it over the radio. But it scares hell out of them on TV . . . Anyway, they all buy the same tobacco from the same floors, grown by the same growers."

In short, instead of scaring customers away from competing brands, the tobacco companies seemed to be scaring them away from tobacco altogether. Editorialized the Raleigh News & Observer: "It still seems a little odd that those who most emphasize the possible bad effects of cigarettes on people are the cigarette manufacturers themselves."

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