Economic impact if cancer was curable

[pbrower2a]

Smoking would make a huge comeback, as cancerweed use is one of the strongest contributors to early deaths from cancer. In many respects, cigarettes were a wonderful business. They were easy add-ons to any retail business; even restaurants were selling them.  Smokers were wonderful customers due to brand-name loyalty, so that did wonders for advertising. We would again see tobacco ads everywhere -- including on television as they used to be.

In television alone America had only three commercial networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) from 1956  to 1986, between the demise of the DuMont TV network and the entry of FoX. DuMont did not vanish due to the ban on cigarette ads, as the TV market was effectively limited to three channels in most cities -- but people who disliked the triopoly of ABC, CBS, and NBC for commercial television were slowed in getting a fourth channel available on UHF in such modest-sized cities as Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati because the advertising revenue was not enough to support a fourth nationwide network until 1986. FoX did not get to rely upon cigarette advertising.