Will Barks wrote:It's easy to judge. For most of Walt's life cigarettes weren't even deemed dangerous to your health. There was a time when doctors even promoted cigarettes. In addition to the high addictiveness of nicotine, they are are huge stress reliever. And someone in the position of Walt probably couldn't do without some kind of compensation. Who knows? He may have gotten a burnout at 40 and stopped making films altogether.
Ok, so I know this was posted nearly a year ago, but I feel the need to chime in. You are exactly right! So I'd like to post an extremely brief history lesson to those that may have a hard time understanding how the views of smoking have changed so dramatically since the days of Walt.
I agree that it's easy to judge, especially given what we know now about smoking is taken for granted. And yes, throughout most of Walt's lifetime cigarettes weren't even considered dangerous, and some cigarettes were indeed promoted by
doctors through magazine ads and television commercials. And if you want to hear something even worse, menthol cigarettes were given to nose and throat specialists to hand out to their patients suffering from colds because it was believed to be beneficial! At its very worst, some considered smoking "immoral," akin to the sins of gambling and drinking, but for decades the general public simply had no way of knowing just how dangerous of an addiction it is.
It wasn't until 1964 that the very first Surgeon General's report on the possible dangers of smoking was made, and I quote:
"Cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer in men; [...] The data for women, though less extensive, points in the same direction." At that time, an astonishing 53% of all American males were smokers, as well as one-third of all women. It was widely accepted as the norm in homes and public places of all kinds, including restaurants, commercial flights, even medical conferences and
hospitals! Even non-smokers typically kept ashtrays available just in case they had smoking guests show up; no one in their right mind would be rude enough to tell a guest not to smoke in their home! Famous television personalities regularly endorsed cigarette brands by smoking them on air, ranging from Lucille Ball & Desi Arnez to Fred & Wilma Flintstone! So most were incredulous at this report, and many pointed at correlation rather than causation when it came to the growing link between smoking and cancer. Interestingly, back then most previously known diseases researched were based on infection, so determining the potential causes of such illnesses as cardiovascular disease and cancer was uncharted territory and remained largely misunderstood (and debated) without being able to run the same type of familiar clinical studies. And despite the fact that lung cancer was clearly on the rise, even the medical community remained skeptical of the role cigarettes played and argued it was possible to be just an artifact of better technology, medical advancement, and diagnoses (i.e., how many people that died of "old age" in the previous years really died of cancer without having the knowledge and technology to be properly diagnosed?).
And at the time of the 1964 report, the tobacco industry was extremely powerful and at the peak of its wealth, and had already internally acknowledged the links to cancer, yet did its best to minimize the impact of the Surgeon General's findings. It's worth mentioning here that it's now well-documented how the industry founded their own "research" organization in order to cherry-pick favorable findings in an attempt to discredit actual scientific evidence, because they shifted their advertising toward being "healthier" by touting lower tar and nicotine in their brands. It wasn't until 1965 that the very first Surgeon General's warnings were required to be printed directly on the cigarette packaging, the first of which stated: "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to your Health." it wasn't until 1967 that the FCC required television networks to counter paid cigarette ads with an equal time of anti-smoking advertisements, which painfully gave away millions of dollars' worth of free airtime from the networks; this back and forth did not end until 1971 when all cigarette commercials were banned from being broadcast entirely. And despite all this, it was not until the 1970s that the majority of Americans finally believed that smoking was indeed the cause of lung cancer. Up through the 1980s, many high schools had smoking areas
for the students. And it may be difficult to fathom now, but it wasn't until 1988 that nicotine was acknowledged as more than just a habit, that it was actually
addicting. I also recall my parents being able to smoke while we were shopping
in the mall or at a
Kmart, as they had tall, standing ashtrays spread throughout the halls and stores for your convenience (this was also in the 1980s)! A restaurant I used to work had a smoking section and didn't outright ban it until 2001 (which was a corporate decision the local manager fought against).
Anyway, I'm getting off track, so here's a quick timeline to put things into perspective:
First part of the 20th century: Cigarettes are a growing industry with unregulated advertising, is widely accepted and even considered healthy as it endorsed by doctors
1950s: The medical community begins to see a correlation between smoking and the increase in lung cancer, but cannot prove causation beyond a doubt; none of this is known by the general public
1964: Very first Surgeon General's report, met with skepticism by not only the general population, but by the medical community as there is still no hardcore proof
1965: Very first Surgeon General's warning: "Caution: Cigarette Smoking
May Be Hazardous to your Health." Not that it
is hazardous, but that it
may be.
1966: Walt dies of lung cancer 
1967: The first anti-smoking television ads are required to air
1970s: For the first time, the
majority of Americans finally believe that smoking indeed causes cancer
1971: Cigarette commercials are banned from television
1988: For the first time, cigarettes are deemed addictive and not just a habit by medical experts
So to expect that Walt should have known better or that his family should have stepped in is kind of ridiculous, as it's a modern viewpoint that doesn't take any historical context into consideration. There are only 2 short years between the very first Surgeon General's report (which was questioned even by the medical community) and Walt's untimely death; back in his day, smoking was simply part of the norm and no one thought anything of it other than maybe it was a little "immoral." Walt clearly held an extremely stressful position for decades and his smoking habit/addiction helped ease that burden; he had no reason to even suspect it was harmful beyond causing an aggravating cough until potentially the last year or two of his life, but even that is a stretch; in 1966, most Americans still didn't recognize or have much reason to believe in the connection between smoking and cancer.
Just sayin.'
