The Tobacco Master Settlement: That Time We Got Em
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us, and now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them.
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Hello, my love. I'm Ryan Weiss. And for the past 15 years, I've been an emotional intelligence coach and a spiritual guide. And I'm sharing with you my new podcast, Waking Up With Ryan. Waking Up With Ryan is a daily audio video podcast here to help you connect with yourself before the noise of the day takes over. So let's start our days together with a moment of calm that's just for you. Listen to Waking Up With Ryan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, everybody. I'm Tariqa Foster-Brasby. What's up, y'all? I'm your girl, Cheryl Swoops. When you tune in to a new episode of our podcast, Levels to This, you're definitely going to get some spicy WNBA analysis. But we're more than just hoops. And the real conversation is what we actually bring. It's been really, really cool seeing kind of these women just really step into their power off the court and understand that they are basketball, right? And they're not asking for permission. Listen to Levels to This with Cheryl Swoops and Tarika Foster-Brasby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff You Should Know. I think part of our ongoing corporate malfeasance edition.
Yeah, for sure. And the beginning of this episode ties in a lot with, we did an episode about the history of the cigarette. Sure. Like just the thing that you shouldn't put in your mouth, but people do.
Right.
And so we're going to talk a little bit about that here at the beginning, because you need to know a little bit about that as it leads up to what were the lawsuits against big tobacco. And we should start by saying that it's been a long time that we've known that tobacco and smoking was really bad for you and would kill you. Like the 1920s, we knew for sure. The 1950s, we really, really knew. And in the 1960s is when John F. Kennedy finally came out via his surgeon, General Luther Terry, and said, all right, everybody, it's 1964. I'm finally going to issue a government report based on, you know, about a dozen studies with lots of data, about a million male smokers. And this stuff is really bad for you.
So we're going to have to start putting warning labels on packages.
Yeah. The great thing about those warning labels, though, is you were educated to imagine Sammy Davis Jr. saying it in your head.
That's right.
So the cigarette companies, this is the beginning of their playbook. And their playbook was basically, nah, prove it. You can't prove it. This is the whole idea of settled science, which is just a complete oxymoron. Science is never settled. It's a constant ongoing process. But the idea that you have to have 100% definitive proof before you can even begin talking about whether something is harmful or not, and really exploiting and manipulating the public through really horrible means, this is where that all started. And the first response that cigarette companies came up with was to say, All right, how about we put filters on cigarettes? Because as everybody knows, cigarettes make your throat kind of scratchy.
Sometimes they can make you hoarse. And that's okay. That's just part of smoking. These new filters are going to help with all of that. And there you go. Cigarettes are healthy, everybody.
That's right. In the 60s and 70s, that's when we saw lighter cigarettes or low-tar cigarettes. In the 50s, they got really sort of organized and official about their PR campaigns, I guess, their propaganda campaigns. When they formed the Tobacco Industry Research Committee under the guise of studying the health hazards of smoking.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–11:14
2
How did public awareness of smoking harms evolve from the 1920s to the 1964 Surgeon General report?
11:14–15:35
3
What tactics did tobacco companies use to create doubt about cigarettes' health risks?
15:35–30:04
4
How did tobacco advertising and targeting change to recruit youth in the 1970s–1990s?
30:04–55:51