THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24, 1913. CIGARETTE SMOKING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 24 September 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24, 1913. CIGARETTE SMOKING.

Cigarette smoking is assuming proportions that are almost alarming in New Zealand. Thousands of men are victims of the habit. Hundreds of boys are slaves to it, and, worse than all, not a few women are being brought under the seductive influence of the cigarette. With the use and abuse of.narcotics, it is not our purpose to deal. Narcotics may afford relief in certain cases of mental and bodily affliction. We feel it a duty, however, to warn parents against allowing their boys to indulge in a habit that is about as baneful in its influences as opium. A writer in the Australasian health magazine, "Life and Health," says: "If I was forced to determine which of the tAvo, whisky or cigarettes, a boy of nine must use, " ith my personal knowledge of the evils resulting from" each upon the developing body and mind, say whisky. The whisky habit is more easily cured than ths cigaretto habit." This is a rather startling ment to make, but it is supported by evidence of a most convincing character. The cigarette addict is plinod in a class with the morphine and cocaine fiend. It destroys the will of the boy, and robs him of the desire to make refonns. It makes him ■unreliable. He will lie and steal, arid in time he loses all sense of modesty. Judge Gemmell, of Chicago, recently

asserted that of the many thousands of criminals who had appeared before him, he.had observed that in almost every instance where the young man or woman had lost the faculty to blush, they were cigarette fiends. Dr Coffin, who has for a number of years been connected with the Whittier Reform School of California, recently stated that "Ninety-eight per cent, of the criminals jthat have passed through the school were cigarette users, and ninety-five per cent, were cigarette fiends." It is claimed that the use of the cigarette changes the disposition of the boy. He becomes careless and indifferent to his present and future welfare. The writer of the article in "Life and Health" — who is a medical man —says very tru-1 ly: "We pass rigid laws to shut out of our country defectives and criminals, but we sanction by law; in return for a few paltry pence' received as revenue, an evil which ig turning our promising youths into defectives, imbeciles and criminals." The use of cigarettes is rapidly increasing. In Germany it has increased ten-fold during the past fifteen years. During the year 1912 there were consumed in the United States not less than thirty billion cigarettes. In New Zealand, wo fear, the rate of consumption is expanding enormously. We would not deny the working man his pipe, nor his cigarette for that matter. But surely—surely we owe a duty to the rising generation, to those upon whom the future'destiny of this bright Dominion depends. Are we going to permit the youth of this country to be enslaved by a habit which will bring to them physical and mental impoverishment? Our legislators, in their wisdom, have declared it to be unlawful to supply young people under the age of twentyone years with alcoholic liquor. If it be a fact that cigarette-smdking has a more debasing effect upon the juvenile than alcohol, is it not a duty of the State to pass legislation restricting the supply of cigarettes to our youths PA Bill was introduced in the House of Representatives of Japan twelve years ago, prohibiting the use of cigarettes by young men under twenty years of age. This Bill became law in 1900. Mr Neman, in speaking on the Bill, said: "If we expect to make this country superior to the nations of Europe and America, we must not allow our youths, who are to become the fathers and mothers of our country in the future, to smoke." He further stated that cigarettes benumbed the nervous system and weakened the mental powers of children, thus giving a death-blow to the vitality of the nation.