Smoke From The Bottomless Pit

In 1604, James I, King of England, tagged smoking, "a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fumes thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." Today some 60 million Americans smoke millions of pounds of tobacco every year at a cost of about $9 billion. Tobacco is taken primarily, of course, in the form of cigarettes (528 billion consumed each year), which are supplemented by pipe tobacco, cigars, snuff and chewing tobacco. In spite of an anti-smoking campaign in the U.S. in recent years-a result of quite conclusive evidence linking cigarette smoking to a variety of diseases-there has been little progress made in stopping the habit. This is largely due to the fact that all of $232 million were spent on television advertisements alone last year, not to mention various other media, in order to promote smoking.

Caffeine is another very popular intoxicant. Americans consume coffee at the rate of seventeen pounds per year for every man, woman and child in the nation. This amounts to millions of pounds of pure caffeine. In addition, sedatives, stimulants and tranquilizers are used by about 20 million Americans, most of whom are members of the upper and middle classes, and most over thirty.