Throats in Trouble
Tobacco is back in the news again, with the $375 million pledge by billionaires Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg to help curb smoking. In my lifetime — I am now 96 — the story of tobacco has undergone a profound change. At one time, the smoke-filled room was an ever-present mark of social and political gatherings. Nicotine was imbibed in many ways in addition to smoking. It was chewed in the form of gum. It was inhaled and called “snuff.”
My personal experience with tobacco was a key moment in my life. As a teenage socialist in Brooklyn, I spent many hours on a soapbox haranguing my listeners about the injustices of capitalism. On one occasion, my throat began to choke. I went to a doctor and asked him what to do. He gave me a medicine and told me to take a sip when my throat began to bother me.
I asked him what caused my discomfort in the first place. He asked me whether I smoked. I said “yes” — cigars, cigarettes, cigarillos and a pipe. “If so,” he said, “you can expect a troublesome throat.” I told him I would quit smoking. He told me that smoking becomes a habit that is difficult to break. But I had no difficulty. Apparently, I had never inhaled.
At some point, the public view of smoking underwent a revolutionary change. Stores, hotel lobbies and other public places posted “no smoking” signs. It is one reason, though not the only reason, why people live longer in America.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
