Puff, the Magic Draggin’

Though popular today, bashing the tobacco industry is not a new phenomenon. As far back as the late 1800s, the producers of cigarettes were not particularly well liked by certain segments of society. In particular, cigar makers feared the competition the popular, little smokes posed to their own lucrative, but more expensive, tobacco business. The threat was enough to make them gag. They were aided in their attempts to stamp out the cigarette by some of the more self-righteous members of the population. These well meaning, but not so well informed folks, argued that cigarette smoking was generally associated with immoral and criminal behavior, from youthful mischief makers to adult murderers. Teachers complained that the mild, addictive taste of these low priced smokes was too tempting for many weak willed boys to ignore. It was thought that smoking contributed to these boys’ arrested mental and physical development, and led to a life of wicked depravity. At the very least, overuse of the little weeds led to the wasting effects of the dreaded, “cigarette face”, which any trained observer could plainly spot. It’s unclear whether these arguments had much merit or extinguished the cigarette’s popularity, but in 1888, Congress pushed up taxes on cigarettes by 200% to raise money for the Spanish-American War. The price of a nickel pack of ten smokes did shot up 20 per cent, which, for a time anyway, scared cigarette consumers off even more than the fear of contracting “cigarette face.”