One Year Later

A year ago, a committee of impartial experts reported to Surgeon General Luther L. Terry that "cigarette smoking is a health hazard" and warrants "appropriate remedial action." Last week a dozen voluntary health organizations that have joined with three agencies of the Federal Government in a National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health met in Washington to assess what "remedial action" has been taken.

On the legislative level, the few proposals aimed at curbing cigarette consumption have been buried in committee. Last week Washington's Senator Warren Magnuson proposed that all cigarette packages be marked with a danger label. Whether such a law can get past Democratic legislators from Southern tobacco states remains to be seen.

At the administrative level, the Fed eral Trade Commission was ready to require the same sort of labeling that Magnuson is now asking for. But the FTC was urged by Congress to postpone any ruling until next spring. President Johnson, who quit smoking after his 1955 heart attack, made no mention of cigarettes in his massive health message to Congress, which promised an all-out attack on every major ill known to man.

For Squares. On the propaganda and persuasion level, though, the mills were grinding. Dr. Terry noted that 350,000 copies of his report were distributed during the year. And the American Cancer Society sent out 10 million copies of a comic-book insert addressed to teenagers, Smoking Is for Squares.

For its part, the tobacco industry adopted an advertising code that forbids associating cigarettes with sex appeal, social charm or manliness. But this was not enough for Emerson Foote, an ex-adman who made a fortune out of peddling cigarettes before he changed sides and began to crusade against smoking with a convert's zeal. Incredibly, he urged the tobacco companies to stop advertising altogether. Foote has just moved in as chairman of the Interagency Council.

Unlike the Cancer Society, the American Medical Association saw no need for haste. Aided by a hefty grant from the tobacco industry, the A.M.A. announced that it was embarking on a five-year study of the effects of long-continued smoking.

For Millions. As for the general public, the report to Surgeon General Terry a year ago had an immediate effect. Cigarette stocks fell; cigarette sales dropped by 10%. But slowly, smoking has edged back toward its previous level. Total sales for 1964 are expected to be about 3% below the 1963 mark. And cigarette stocks rose in the wake of last week's Interagency press conference. But for Dr. Terry, even those rising statistics included reasons for optimism. "If we take into consideration the 3,000,000 increase in population," he said, "the drop in total cigarette consumption is substantial."

Surveys in both 1955 and 1962 showed that 59% of American men smoked cigarettes, said Dr. Terry. In the fall of 1964, a similar survey showed only 52% smoking. "A decline of seven percentage points," Dr. Terry noted duly, "is certainly less than we would wish." Through 1962, the proportion of women smokers was still increasing, but two years later it had fallen by two to three percentage points.

Dr. Terry was particularly interested in the next generation of physicians because of their influence on patients. Among senior medical students, his study showed, only 55% are smokers, as against 83% of other men the same age. And of med students who started smoking, no fewer than 44% have quit, as against 18% of their age group in the general population.

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