Released on Tuesday to considerable comment from the media, this new report from the US Surgeon General reveals that smoking has become a leading killer of American women in just two generations. Women now account for 39 percent of the country's smoking-related deaths, more than doubling the proportion of 1965. While the rate of adult women smokers has not changed much, that of teenaged girls has...

Culled from the archives of Harper's Weekly, this online trove of visual material and articles deals with the controversy over the alleged health benefits and potential hazards of smoking. The site begins with an orienting essay by John Adler, the publisher of HarpWeek. The compilation itself is quite revealing, pointing out that, as early as 1862, tobacco addiction was a recognized problem, and...

Released on August 9, this new 462-page report from US Surgeon General David Satcher argues that smoking rates could be cut in half within a decade if proven anti-smoking efforts are fully implemented. Among the measures advocated are school-based anti-smoking programs, aggressive anti-tobacco community and media campaigns, raising prices and taxes, and improving tobacco warning labels. The report...

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Tuesday released this 251-page monograph detailing the dangers of "low tar" cigarettes. The monograph, the thirteenth in NCI's Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph Series, reports findings that reductions in cancer rates are due to decreases in smoking prevalence not to changes in cigarette design, which according to NCI, have done little to address public...