Every pack of cigarettes clearly states a warning from the Surgeon General; the warning contains information on how dangerous a cigarette is to the human body (Cauchon). This warning was not put on cigarettes until much after they were created. Cigarettes, which had been around since the early 1600s, didn't become widely popular in the United States until after the Civil War. The negative health effects of tobacco were not initially known; in fact, most early European physicians subscribed to the Native American belief that tobacco can be an effective medicine. However, by the early 20th century, with the growth in cigarette smoking, articles addressing the health effects of smoking began to appear in scientific and medical journals. In 1930, researchers in Cologne, Germany, made a statistical correlation between cancer and smoking. Eight years later, Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University reported that smokers do not live as long as non-smokers. By 1944, the American Cancer Society began to warn about possible ill effects of smoking, although it admitted that "no definite evidence exists" linking smoking and lung cancer (Burns p.78). .
The first ban on smoking was imposed by Pope Urban VII in 1590, much before cigarettes were introduced in America. This ban kept people from smoking in public areas in Europe (Head). Even though this ban was so long ago, there is much to learn and understand from it. If a ban were to be created today on cigarettes, there would be a substantial amount of benefits as an outcome. Current bans on smoking, like smoking in public places in Kansas, stand as evidence that smoking bans improve overall health in a certain area. Products like electronic cigarettes can help an individual quit smoking, which also leads to a healthier lifestyle.
