In 1939, studies began to suggest that smoking might not be that great for you, sullying a great American pastime and a key United States economic industry. What was once a stalwart sector and an established cultural norm soon crumbled. Throughout the ‘40s , scientists continued to link cigarettes to alarmingly higher instances of cancer and heart disease and by the late 1950s, every single U.S. state had instated laws banning the sale of cigarettes to children. An infamous 1969 surgeon general report linked smoking with low birth weight and Congress appeased mounting pressure from the public health sector by putting warning labels on cigarette packaging. In 1969, tobacco companies were the single largest product advertisers on television, and then, seemingly overnight, they lost the battle. The last cigarette ad ever to air on television ran at 11:50 p.m. during a break from The Johnny Carson Show on January […]