Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
>> Christy Turlington: Imagine a business that made a product
that killed up to one-half of their best customers.
It wouldn't kill its users suddenly, but slowly
and insidiously, through poisons that cause or exacerbate cancer,
heart disease, strokes, and lung disease.
Imagine that the company knew their product was deadly and
addictive, but kept manufacturing it anyway.
Imagine that the company spent billions of dollars every year
to replace their dying customers through advertising campaigns
that hooked new users, especially young ones, by making
the product look fun, sexy, and inviting.
Meet the cigarette.
Hi, I'm Christy Turlington.
If you're a woman who smokes and you want to quit,
you're not alone.
The fact is that most women who smoke want to quit, but they
can't find the time or they've tried before and they think they
can't do it.
Or maybe they're afraid they'll gain weight.
If you or someone you love smokes, listen up.
You can quit, and when you do, you'll know how good it feels to
take control of your health.
It might be hard, but it's worth it.
If you smoke, quitting for good is the single most important
thing you can do for a healthy life.
I know because I'm one of the women who have kicked the habit.
It's one of the best things I ever did.
>> In view of the continuing and mounting evidence from many
sources, it is the judgment of the Committee that
cigarette-smoking contributes substantially to mortality from
certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.
>> By 2025 -- 27 years from now --
500 million people worldwide will die of
tobacco-related disease.
That's a Vietnam War every day for 27 years.
That's a Titanic every 43 minutes for 27 years.
>> Turlington: How did it happen that this deadly product,
claiming the lives of 430,000 Americans each year,
became so popular?
>> ♪ You've come a long way, baby ♪
>> Introducing new Virginia Slims, the slim
cigarette for women only -- >> Turlington: We may have come
a long way in some ways, but when it comes to tobacco,
women have taken many steps back.
>> Woman: Today, there are many more deaths in this country each
year from lung cancer than breast cancer.
Women with breast cancer have, oh, 85%, 90%,
5-year survival rates.
For women with lung cancer, it's only about 16% who live 5 years
beyond the time of diagnosis.
>> The number-one cause of cancer deaths in women is
lung cancer.
The rate of lung cancer in women has increased by 600%
in the last 50 years.
>> [ Jazz plays ] >> Turlington: Beginning in the
1920s and continuing today, tobacco companies have targeted
women with aggressive advertising campaigns
designed to win them over.
The cigarette has been sold as a means for weight control and a
symbol of freedom and independence.
>> Ernster: Later themes, such as "It's a woman's thing,"
or more recently, "Find your voice,"
have continued to suggest that the cigarette is somehow
a badge of women's freedom.
i think the irony is that it's just the opposite.
>> Turlington: Cigarettes have been portrayed by Hollywood and
the media as a glamorous accessory that will make women
seductive and alluring.
But the promised freedom and attractiveness turned out to be
anything but.
The real ploy behind the marketing was to get women
hooked on one of the most deadly and addictive substances
we know.
>> That's true.
>> [ Heartbeat ]
>> [ Coughing ]
>> Lung cancer is a possibility, you know.
I do think about that.
I have watched things on emphysema and, you know,
it's very scary.
>> I guess that's just not the way I visualize myself dying.
Maybe that sounds weird, but I've always just figured I'll,
you know, live 'til I'm old and get hit by a truck when I'm 70.
>> My father died of lung cancer.
He was 64.
It was a senseless death because it could have been prevented.
Not everyone who smokes will die from it, but as many as half of
all long-term smokers will.
Everyone thinks she won't be the one, but why take chances?
>> I really don't think smoking is bad.
That pretty much depends on how often you do it.
>> Man: Lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease --
anybody that thinks that
they're going to able to smoke and won't develop some of these
complications or diseases is delusional.
>> I feel as though that I'm young and there's no way
possible I can get lung cancer.
I'm only 24.
>> Meet Pam Laffin, who started smoking when she was just a kid.
>> I started smoking because I wanted to look older.
And I got hooked.
Cigarettes gave me asthma and bronchitis,
but I couldn't quit.
I didn't quit until I got emphysema
and had a lung removed.
I was 24.
I'm 26 now.
The medication, which I'll take for the rest of my life,
left me with this fat face and a hump on my neck.
I started smoking to look older and I'm sorry to say
it worked.
The things that I didn't understand about smoking-related
illness are, first of all, the doctor doesn't say, "You have
cancer" or "You have emphysema," and then you die.
It takes a while and it's not a pleasant way to live.
The transplanted lung went into rejection, which means my body
started to reject it.
And now, my 13-year-old daughter kind of feels like she's the
head of the household because a lot of the responsibility of the
household falls on her.
And so I feel really bad.
I feel really guilty that I took away their childhood, I feel
really guilty that they have to worry about me.
If I have to go to the hospital in an ambulance and my kids
watch me go away in an ambulance, they really don't
know if I'm ever coming home, so they don't know if they're
ever going to see me again.
>> Turlington: When Pam understood how sick she was,
she dedicated herself to educating women like you.
She died just before we completed this video.
She was only 31 years old.
It's heartbreaking but true -- if you smoke, it can kill you.
Every cigarette hurts you.
We're not here to bring you down, we're here to bring you
the truth, woman to woman.
>> [ Baby coughing ] >> My mom smoked, and I hated it
as a child.
I swore I would never smoke.
And I smoke.
>> Turlington: Tobacco companies worked hard for years to make us
think that smoking was a civil right and nonsmokers just
had to put up with it.
Now, we know better.
The California Environmental Protection Agency
estimates that secondhand smoke, sometimes called "environmental
tobacco smoke," or ETS, causes 35,000 to 62,000 deaths a year
from heart disease in nonsmokers.
That number includes our husbands, our families,
the ones we love.
I have a 5-year-old little boy and he tells me all the time,
"Mom, you're going to die when you smoke."
>> Turlington: Listen to your kids.
Environmental tobacco smoke is especially dangerous for babies,
young children, older people, and people with health problems.
Secondhand smoke causes asthma, lung infections, and even
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
>> The Surgeon General came out with a report on
secondhand smoke and the Environmental Protection Agency
recognizes cigarette smoke as an environmental danger.
And I can tell you, personally, of people that I know who never
smoked, but died of lung cancer.
>> I don't really think it's that hard to stop.
Most people probably do.
I don't -- it's more, I think, of a mind-challenge.
I'm not really hooked, per se.
>> We know that almost all smoking starts in the teenage
years, before people really are thinking at all about long-term
health consequences.
And many young people who smoke say, Oh, I won't be smoking in
five years.
>> I can't see myself married, with kids, and smoking.
There's no way.
I guess it's just because of the age I'm at right now.
>> Ernster: All that's pretty much a myth because most kids
who were daily smokers as teens are still smokers
five years later.
>> Almost every smoker I've ever talked to started out believing
she could quit whenever she wanted.
So let's look at all the facts.
>> Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs known to man
and one of the most destructive substances in our society.
>> In the beginning, it might not have been known that the
nicotine was the addictive substance in cigarettes,
but the cigarette companies found that out quite quickly.
>> Turlington: A lot of what the tobacco companies knew decades
ago has now come to light in recently released internal
industry documents.
>> Man: The cigarette should be conceived not as a product,
but as a package.
The product is nicotine.
Think of a cigarette pack as a storage container for
a day's supply of nicotine.
Think of a cigarette as a dispenser
for a dose unit of nicotine.
Think of a puff of smoke as a vehicle of nicotine.
>> Man: We now possess a knowledge of the effects of
nicotine far more extensive than exists in published
scientific literature.
>> Man: Moreover, nicotine is addictive.
We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine,
an addictive drug.
>> Man: Raise your right hand.
>> Turlington: Compare what these secret documents reveal to
what the CEOs of these same companies were saying in public.
>> Rep. Wyden: "Yes" or "no."
Do you believe nicotine is not addictive?
>> I don't believe that nicotine or our products are addictive.
>> I believe nicotine is not addictive.
>> I believe that nicotine is not addictive.
>> How can they say that?
>> Turlington: It is especially important for women to
understand how harmful and addictive tobacco is because
when a woman gets pregnant, her smoking harms her unborn
baby, too.
Women who smoke are more likely to have smaller and
sicker babies.
Women smokers are also more likely to be infertile
and have more miscarriages than nonsmokers.
>> Ernster: Some women say, well, I'll quit the first time
I become pregnant.
It's very important,
not only to encourage women to quit smoking either before or
at early stages of pregnancy, but to remain quit after the
baby is born because only about a third of the women who
successfully quit smoking during pregnancy remain
nonsmokers after the baby is born.
>> Turlington: Despite all that we know about how dangerous it
is, many women continue to smoke during pregnancy.
It's so much better never to start, but if you or someone you
love is pregnant and smoking, get help.
>> Turlington: Every year, tobacco kills more Americans
than all of those who die from AIDS, illegal drugs, alcohol,
car crashes, homicides, and suicides combined.
>> Joseph LoCicero: This is a healthy human lung.
This is a lung removed from a patient who had emphysema.
>> The worst addiction that we have is cigarette-smoking.
>> Turlington: Let's get this straight --
tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death,
by far.
Almost half of all long-term smokers will be killed
by tobacco.
Some deaths cannot be prevented.
Tobacco deaths are completely preventable.
>> [ Monitor beeps ]
>> All my friends that are smokers, that's one of the
reasons why they keep smoking, because they're so afraid of
gaining weight.
>> Turlington: Women are much more concerned about their
weight than are men.
Cigarette companies know this and want you to think that
smoking will help keep you thin.
Let's hear from some women who have successfully quit.
>> I didn't gain any weight.
I think that if you implement some daily exercise into your
life, some other types of physical activity, maybe walking
as opposed to standing outside and having a cigarette.
>> Ernster: People who quit smoking, on average,
gain a few pounds.
What would you rather have, a few extra pounds
or bad breath, yellow teeth, smelly clothes,
losing several dollars, if not $5 or $6 a day, to an industry
which is, ultimately, very likely to make you a victim and
to claim you in an early death?
>> And if you think that smoking makes you look good,
think again.
>> Woman: Don't look at the pictures.
Don't look at the Virginia Slims and, you know,
their "Alive with" freedom.
Follow a smoker around and look at how crippling it is.
My nails were yellow and brittle, my skin was,
you know, dry.
I'm not even going to get into the number of men that I missed
out on dating because they didn't date girls who smoked.
>> Something wonderful.
>> Turlington: The cigarette companies knew when people
started worrying about the health effects of smoking.
They made changes in cigarettes to make smokers think they were
smoking safer, calling them "light" and "pure."
These changes were part of a long-running public relations
campaign to hide the real health hazards of cigarettes, to keep
current customers smoking and to attract new smokers.
>> That didn't deter me from smoking them,
because they were light.
Why wouldn't they be better for you?
>> What I found with cigarettes that are supposed to be light
and supposed to be, I guess, better for you, is, the idea is
that you just smoke more of them because there's less nicotine,
so you feel like you haven't gotten your full hit and you
need another one.
>> It's interesting that, since filtered cigarettes have
been developed and have become more popular, the types of
lung cancer that people get, including women, has changed.
>> Turlington: There's no such thing as a safe cigarette,
and the poisonous ingredients in cigarettes aren't just limited
to tar and nicotine.
Here's a typical recipe for a cigarette --
>> Lead; ammonia, a household cleaner;
arsenic, used in rat poison; benzene, used in making dyes;
butane gas; carbon Monoxide, a poisonous gas;
DDT, a banned insecticide; polonium 210, a cancer-causing
radioactive element.
>> [ Coughing ]
>> If you're paying attention to the news now, then you know that
smoking's dangerous but, at this point, how do you stop?
>> But, I think I could quit one by one.
You know, I just can't all, like, okay, I'm throwing this
pack away, I'm not smoking ever again -- no, I can't do that.
>> It's not a sign of weakness if you have to use a patch to
quit smoking.
It's a sign that you've determined that you're going to
improve your health and this is the way you're going to do it.
>> But I just think about what my life felt like before I was
smoking again and it was a much better place to be and I'd like
to go back there.
>> The good news is, you can quit and there's help.
It might not be easy, it may not happen the first time,
but there are 50 million Americans who have quit.
That's more than who still smoke.
There are also exciting new developments in pharmaceutical
therapies that can help.
>> I think it's very important to emphasize that it's never
too late to quit smoking.
>> Don't stop trying.
I tried several times to quit and I was finally able to do it.
Don't be discouraged.
It takes time.
I mean, you're literally changing your life.
>> I'm strong.
I have to be strong.
I am strong.
And you really have to get your mind in that sense,
that you're not going to -- you know, that control,
that you are now in control, not the cigarette.
>> Every time you don't give in to that urge, you feel so good.
You're so happy that you didn't smoke, and then you're like, ah.
You feel better, it's passed.
Your hands don't smell, your hair doesn't smell, you don't
have to hide it and run and brush your teeth and hide it
from anybody, you know.
You're just happy with yourself, that you didn't give in.
>> Now that you know you're not alone in this, reach out
for help.
For great quitting tips, visit the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention's web site.
You can also visit Dr. Bill at thriveonline on Oxygen.com.
He's a former smoker himself and offers a lot of help to stay
motivated and stay healthy.
The point is to keep trying, do whatever it takes.
It's your body and your life.
Don't give up giving up.
♪ Lines unspoken ♪
♪ heart cracked ♪
♪ Love's so pure ♪
♪ Even if it's not given back ♪
♪ And I'm not ready, I'm not ready ♪
♪ I'm not ♪ ♪ I'm not ready ♪♪