An Open Letter to Jon Hamm
Smoking Is Cool Again. Lung Cancer Still Isn’t.
Dear Jon,
You know better than most what a cigarette can do for an image. Don Draper rarely entered a room without one.
But this isn’t about Mad Men. Something new is happening.
Is Smoking Back in Vogue?
Cigarettes are swamping pop culture. After decades of sustained effort to shut down tobacco advertising on television, radio, and billboards, smoking has found a new medium: word of mouth delivered by social media.
Check Instagram, TikTok, or X, and you’ll find celebrities smoking, cigfluencers smoking, and social renegades smoking.
Major news organizations, including The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The New Yorker, have noticed. They’re asking the question: Is smoking back in vogue?
It’s The Wrong Question
I think we’re asking the wrong question.
Instead of debating whether smoking is fashionable again, we should be talking about the people who got caught the last time it was.
That cultural tsunami left millions of people with an addiction many spent decades trying to escape. We’ve invested enormous effort in preventing the next generation from smoking. We’ve paid far less attention to helping the last generation survive it.
If smoking is in the headlines again, let’s use the moment to tell another story. Stopping people from smoking—and screening those who already did—are complementary public health goals.
People Are Dying
More than 124,000 Americans die from lung cancer every year, largely because their cancer is discovered too late. Lung screening in high-risk populations can reduce their mortality rate by 20%.
So why aren’t more people getting screened?
Researchers point to three persistent barriers: lack of awareness, lack of access, and stigma.
Stigma.
Somehow smoking reads as glamorous, while lung cancer evokes shame. We glamorize smoking at one end of life and stigmatize its victims at the other.
Saved By The Scan
We may fault an older generation for falling under the influence, but that mustn’t stop us from helping them now—and guiding them to a screening center.
The test could hardly be simpler.
A low-dose CT scan takes minutes. You remain fully dressed, lie on a table, hold your breath for a few seconds, and pass through the scanner. No needles. No invasive poking. No drama.
The scan can find lung cancer before it causes symptoms, when tumors are small and potentially curable. When lung cancer is found at Stage I, ten-year survival can reach 80 percent or better.
We Need Your Voice
We need actors, rock stars, musicians, and cultural icons like you to urge the smoking generation to get screened. A social media post in response to this letter could make a big difference. Lung cancer is a health issue, not a social failing.
If cigfluencers can make smoking fashionable again, we can make getting screened something worth talking about.
Can we count on your support?
Yours truly,
Jan Pezarro
3x lung cancer survivor, writer, and advocate
Author of Time Bomb: A Memoir of Mad Men and Lung Cancer
Are you or a loved one at risk? Take the next step:
US Residents: Take the American Lung Association Screening Quiz
Canadian Residents: Learn how to Get Screened via the Canadian Cancer Society
