PAGE6 FEBRUARY 2ND 1983 Have Another Ni “Smokers consume more coffee (cafeine), more alcohol, more marijuana and more aspirin than non-smokers." In the third floor of the city hospital, a middle-aged man quietly loses the fight against lung cancer as the rush- hour traffic threads its way home. Meanwhile, downstairs in the giftshop, a young women asks the cashier for another package of cigarettes. Such a scene illustrates the inherent paradox that characterizes cigarette smoking. While tobacco ac- counts for annual sales of over 2.8 billion dollars in Canada, it also claims the lives of approximately 100,000 Canadians annually from smoking and smoke- related fatalities. According to the United States Surgeon-General’s report, Smoking and Health, the average pack-a-day smoker is twice as likely to die before he reaches the age of fifty than is a non-smoker. The smoker's life expectancy is 8.1 years shorter than his non-smoking counterpart. Smokers are forced to pay an average annual cost of 66 percent more for life insurance than non-smokers. The Hall Report on ‘‘Canada’s National-Provincial Health Program for the 1980’s’’ states that diseases that result from smoking cost the federal government 75,300 dollars in health costs per smoker between the ages of 15 and 65. Death that results from smoking costs the federal government 79,920 dollars per smoker in the same age group. These staggering figures, however, are not included in the corporate profit-loss statements, nor are they mentioned in the battery of life-style advertisements with which tobacco companies assault consumers. The Third Report of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1977 stated that ‘‘Tobacco smoking is a form of drug dependence different from but no less strong than in other drugs of addiction.’’ The Surgeon-General’s report states that ‘‘one of the most reliable correlates of cigarette smoking is the use of other drugs.’’ Smokers consume more coffee (caf- feine), more alcohol, more marijuana and more aspirin than do non-smokers. Smokers tend to posses more neurotic traits includ- ing psychological tension and more psychosomatic symptoms. In addition, smokers tend to be hospitalized more often than non-smokers and are, as expected, beset wih a higher incident of specific diseases such as hypertension, pneumonia, coronary artery disease and lung problems. Ten thousand Canadians die each year from lung cancer alone. The report also cites various experiments that con- clude that smokers have greater anti-social tendencies, including belligerence, psychopathic deviance, mis- conduct, rebelliousness, defiance and disagreeable- ness. Though these findings may seem quite extreme, Mr. G.F. Lewis, Associate Professor of Anatomy at McMaster’s Medical Centre, explains that results such as these are common knowledge amongst the medical community. The general population, however, does not have access to such knowledge. Lewis feels it is the responsibility of the medical profession to step in and make poeple aware of the effect of smoking... __ ‘‘Nobody who’s in a position to do something is doing it,"" he said. ‘‘We’ve got to stimulate doctors and nurses to take some lead on the anti-smoking front.’’ Lewis, a former smoker himself, is currently writing a book entitled Smoking and You. Last week, as part of National Anti-Smoking Week, he appeared on the Tom Cherington program ‘‘No Bull’’ as well as on CFRB and CHUM-AM. ‘“Smoking is a disease condition,’ he continued. “‘People who smoke are genuinely sick. Given what we know, you could identify smoking as a death wish. It is the number one medical problem.’’ Doug Wilson, Unit Director of the Family Practice Teaching Unit at the Med Centre, and another ex- smoker, agrees with Lewis. ‘| don’t think family doctors are taking responsibility for cigarette smoking,’’ he said. ‘‘If we treated smok- ing as a disease and not only advised patients to stop but invited them back for some help in smoking, there would be fewer smokers.’’ ‘The family physician is in a key position, ’’ he said. “We have the knowledge of smoking’s effects and we have the preventive techniques. | personally see it as our responsibility.”” ; R A particularly frightening trend that is becoming apparent in today’s smoking habits inthe number of — young women who are now smoking. In the past, more men than women smoked. But now, not only have women caught up with men, but in certain age groups they have surpassed them. Recent survey data on adolescent smoking habits reveal that by ages 17 to 19, smoking prevalence among women exceeds that of men. The rate of initiation of smoking among young men is declining, whereas it is not for women. The average age at which women begin to smoke is now virtually identical to that of men. The American Cancer Society projects that by 1985 lung cancer, which is causally related to cancer and is presently the number one cancer killer of men, will replace breast cancer as the number one cancer killer among women. Ironically, nurses constitute the largest occupational groups of female smokers. ‘‘Female smokers in their teens and twenties have difficulty stopping because they’re afraid they'll gain weight,’’ said Dr. Wilson. ‘‘If they stop smoking and then gain a few pounds, they go right back to smoking.’ Many birth defects are a direct result of the mother continuing to smoke while pregnant. ‘‘Our neo-natal ward is filled with children suffering from the effects of mothers who smoke during pregnancy,’’ said Lewis. “Their growth and development is impaired if not yet retarded. The may also suffer from a lighter birth weight. “Smoking is a disease condition,"... “People who smoke are genuinely sick." ‘There is no placental barrier for carbon monoxide and nicotine,’’ he explained. ‘‘The fetal blood has 15 times the affinity for carbon monoxide that a mother does. That’s a killer, crippler dose. At birth the child must go cold turkey. It has been programmed from birth to smoke.’ In this age of increased | information flow, is it possible that people can remain unaware of the harmful effects of smoking? Or is it that they would rather not contront the facts?