Seven Deadly Myths

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(Video of an ashtray with lots of cigarette butts. Lower arm of someone puts out another cigarette in ashtray. Title reads Myth#3 "I’m not hooked.")

Background Voice: I’m not hooked.

Female Voice #1: I don’t really think it's that hard to stop, some people probably do, I don’t. It's more I think of an ah, mind challenge. I’m not really hooked per say.

Professor Virginia L. Errister, PHD: 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, ah, who smoke, say Oh I won’t be smoking in five years.

Female Voice #2 : I can’t see myself married with kids and smoking there’s no way. I guess it just because of the age I’m at right now.

Background Voice (Professor Virginia L. Errister, PHD): All that’s pretty much a myth because most kids that were daily smokers as teens are still smokers five years latter.

Christy Turlington: Almost every smoker I’ve ever talked to, started out believing she could quit whenever she wanted. But lets look at the facts.

Dr. Everett Koop; Surgeon General: Nicotine is, ah, one of the most addictive drugs known to man, and one of those most destructive substances in our society.

Female Voice: 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.

Christy Turlington: A lot of what the tobacco companies knew decades ago has now come to light in recently released internal industry documents.

Background Voice (male): The cigarette should be conceived not as a product, but as a package. The product is nicotine. Think of the cigarette pack as a storage container for a day’s supply of nicotine. Think of the cigarette as a dispenser for a dose unit of nicotine. Think of a puff of smoke as the vehicle of nicotine. We now possess knowledge of the effects of nicotine far more extensive than exist in published scientific literature. Moreover, Nicotine is addictive; we are then in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug.

Bailiff (male voice): Could you raise your right hand?

Christy Turlington: Compare these secret documents revealed, to what these CEO’s of these same companies were saying in public.

Male Voice: Yes or NO, do you believe nicotine is not addictive?

Joseph Taddeo (US Tobacco): I do not believe that nicotine, or our products are addictive.

Andrew Tisch (Lorrett Tobacco): I believe nicotine is not addictive.

Edward Hurrigan (Lorret Tobacco): I believe that nicotine is not addictive.

Female Smoker’s Voice: How can they say that?

Christy 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 miscarriages than nonsmokers.

Professor Virginia L. Errister, PHD: Some women say well I’ll quit the first time I become pregnant. It very important not only to encourage women to quit smoking either before or at the early stages of pregnancy but to remain quit after the baby is born. Because only about a 1/3 of the women who successfully quit smoking during pregnancy, remain nonsmokers after the baby is born.

Christy Turlington: Despite all that we know, many women continue to smoke during pregnancy. It's so much better never to start, but if you or someone you know is pregnant and smoking, get help.