"The Official Cigarette of the 1984 Olympics" (Twitter)

[zuul]

Link to tweet

[walkingman]

1. We were very uninformed back then thanks to Corporate America - still are....

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. No we weren't.

As long ago as the 1940s, perhaps earlier, cigarettes were known as coffin nails.

The Surgeon General's report on cigarettes in 1964 stated very clearly that cigarettes were strongly linked to heart disease and lung cancer.

Unfortunately, even today most smokers are in complete denial about how bad smoking is for them.

[walkingman]

11. That is true but I sure remember the Marboro Man was pretty popular back in the 60's.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. And the 1960s are around twenty years earlier.

The information that smoking is very bad for you was completely out there by 1984. Anyone still thinking otherwise was in serious, serious denial.

Movies have continued to show smoking as glamorous, sexy, and desirable, which is a huge problem. Or as a righteous act of defiance, even worse.

[AllaN01Bear]

8. this. tex williams sung this song in the 1940s

[Baked Potato]

2. The bad part was at the time it seemed so normal. Nt

[PoliticAverse]

3. ...

[Chainfire]

5. I have been watching the old Columbo detective series from the '70s.

Everybody smokes, including nurses and doctors in the hospitals, while they are seeing patients. Columbo smokes that nasty cigar everywhere he goes to, and nobody complains. (You smoke one of those things in a car and you never get the smell out.)

In the Columbo days, I was a smoker, my parents and grandparents had been smokers, my teachers all smoked. You weren't a real adult if you weren't a smoker... I have had many family members and friends die with COPD brought on by smoking. It is neither a pleasant way to die, or to watch a love one die. It is a disease that takes a person by slow suffocation.

I was noticing a sign in a store advertising the price of smokes today. A pack a day smoker will spend over $200.00 per month. That is a damn expensive way to commit slow suicide. A couple, who both smoked, at a that rate, could spend the cost of financing a nice new car! It seems that the most people I see smoking are the ones least likely to be able to burn through that much money.

[AllaN01Bear]

7. their lame excuse is choice .

[Diamond_Dog]

12. The pediatrician my mother took us kids to

Was this old guy who I remember would sit behind his desk puffing away, creating a cloud of smoke that lingered up at the ceiling ... he had this gravelly voice and he would hack, hack, hack. I was terrified of him. This would be the mid 1960s.

[Sneederbunk]

6. Strange since TV cigarette ads were banned by 1984.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

9. Can you find an example of that picture's appearing anywhere other than on Twitter

within the last two days?

[zuul]

16. Lighten up, Francis!

It’s The Lounge, for Christ’s sake. It’s supposed to be funny.

[Freddie]

10. I found a can of the Official Soup of the 1984 Olympics in the pantry

Not that long ago - I threw it out. Campbell’s Chicken Noodle.

[walkingman]

14. I think smoking actually helped me to be a better person.

[zuul]

15. Did he actually say that?

I remember that he was dumb as a post and easily manipulated, but damn!

[walkingman]

17. I think he actually did more damage to America overall than any other President.

The irony of his "War on Drugs" which incarcerated thousands of people is that his Iran/Contra actions allowed the illegal importation of drugs for money. I am beginning to think that these damn Rethuglicans all are mentally ill.

Crazy as a June Bug.

[zuul]

18. I agree. He started the country on a ruinous path.

Demonizing unions, denigrating ‘the government’, flat out lying about ‘welfare queens.’

I don’t know if he was actually evil or just gullible and stupid, but he left a lot of damage in his wake.