My Life As A Smoker, Part 2

Confessions of a Nicotine Junkie - THE BANS

I would protest the use of the word NICOTINE in this title. Because I don't think it was nicotine itself that had me in its clenches.

Cigarette advertising on television and radio in the United States was banned starting on January 2, 1971, according to the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act. This ban was enacted through the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, which President Richard Nixon signed into law on April 1, 1970. The ban prohibited the broadcast of cigarette commercials on television and radio. So Nixon did SOME things right.

By then the images of manly men on horseback lighting up Marlboros and sexy women asserting their independence by smoking the elegantly packaged Virginia Slims - among others - were already ingrained in my consciousness. Who didn’t want to be “Alive with Pleasure” like the Newport ads asserted?

I was not against this ban.