WASHINGTON (CAP) - A new study that says the genetic damage that leads to cancer sets in within 30 minutes of your first cigarette has left tobacco company executives miffed, insiders report.
"Well, here we go again," said one vice president at a large American tobacco company, during a joint interview with several colleagues given over speakerphone, under the condition of anonymity. "Now we've got to come up with another damned cartoon character."
"That could take the whole weekend," another executive added, noticeably peeved.
The new report, published in Chemical Research in Toxicology, shows that cancer-causing chemicals form rapidly in the body just 15 to 30 minutes after smoking a single cigarette.
"It's disturbing, to say the least," said Dr. Francis Spitznagel of the Pew Research Center, who worked on the study. "It turns out the idea of just having one cigarette is similar to the concept of just drinking one bottle of Draino, or just huffing one canister of radon.
"Although you'd be surprised at how often both of those things happen," he added.
The study also found that prolonged exposure to so-called "tobacco rays," which cigarettes emit through their packaging, can eventually turn humans into gray-skinned, sallow-cheeked troglodytes. "Which would explain most of the country's convenience store clerks," noted Spitznagel.
Spitznagel said the study stopped short of reporting even more severe findings, but that further research would probably soon yield conclusive proof of the long-rumored "Spielberg Effect," wherein one puff of your first cigarette causes your entire face to melt off, like the Nazi at the end of Raiders Of the Lost Ark.
"That's much more rare, of course," Spitznagel added. "One in 1,000, tops."
The study is only the latest aggravation for tobacco companies, which just recently faced the challenges of marketing a cigarette that tastes like ass, and doing spin control when smoking was named the worst idea in the history of humankind by the National Institute Of Standards And Technology.
"It took a whole quarter for profits to bounce back after that one," noted another clearly annoyed tobacco executive. "The bonuses took quite a hit that year," he said.
"Well, not really," he clarified.
Still, the study about the early, deadly effects of smoking could be even more of a challenge for the tobacco companies, which last year posted a collective profit gain of 684 percent, according to Bizjournals.com.
"Good thing teenagers don't read studies," said the vice president, at which point his fellow executives could be heard laughing and high-fiving each other.
"Um ... You're definitely not using our names, right?" he added.
- CAP News Staff