Posted on 12/15/2002 9:58:44 AM PST by SheLion
What's the best way to get people to stop smoking? For years, groups like the American Cancer Society have tried to turn Americans against cigarettes by being clever. The Web site of one current campaign, TheTruth.com, is filled with jokes like the following: ''In a perfect world, there would be universal peace, everyone would have a monkey of their very own and tobacco companies wouldn't make products that kill 1,200 Americans a day.'' This humorous approach hasn't worked so well, however. This spring, for example, a study revealed that Philip Morris's ''Think. Don't Smoke.'' ads actually made kids more likely to pick up a cigarette. Now the U.S. government is considering a new approach -- bombarding Americans with a simpler, more aggressive message: smoking is really, really gross.
This year, inspired by a successful Canadian experiment, two congressmen introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would require tobacco manufacturers to display graphic warning labels on all cigarette packs. Under the similar Canadian law, which has been in place for almost two years, the entire top half of every pack must be covered with one of 16 government-approved pictures brandishing the horrors of smoking. Most of the images look like either pulp-novel book jackets (a choking man accompanied by the words ''CIGARETTES LEAVE YOU BREATHLESS'') or junior-high health textbooks (a close-up on a mouth full of rotted yellow teeth). Other images include a slack-jawed man hooked up to a respirator, a line graph showing the number of deaths from tobacco use and -- in the one example of the always popular smoking-causes-impotence argument -- a limp cigarette.
The U.S. first picked up on the idea in October, after studies by Canadian antismoking groups showed that around 600,000 Canadians quit smoking last year and that 44 percent of those who did said the graphic warnings increased their motivation to do so. Our government is hoping that pictures of malfunctioning hearts and angry-looking children (''DON'T POISON US,'' that one reads) will have similar effects here.
How about putting Circus Sized Obese people on all bags of chips? How's that? Or attach a huge picture of someone after they had their head shot off by a gun? How's that? Or a big picture of someone after they hit a tree going downhill on skis? How's that? Or a picture on automobiles and liquor bottles of a drunk driver after he killed himself by drinking and driving. How's that?
Two Congressman introduced this bill. What two Congressman? Waxman and McCain???
Why is it ALWAYS about tobacco and smoking? Don't we have other things to worry about here???!!!
1200 a day? Is that stat true? That would be 438,000 a year!
Take a look at Dr. Whelan's article about how Mayor Bloomberg is lying about the figures of smoking deaths. Even a Doctor recognizes this as a big FARCE!
And so does life, and anyone who has the generics for cancer. Won't matter if you smoke or not. If you have the generic make-up, cancer will hit home.
Oh, yeah, 228 of those 1200 are more than 85 years old, and 480 are more than 75.
This figure is part of the CDC's SAMMEC computer program estimates. It would be far more honest if they would simply admit that they assume (this is the basis for SAMMEC) that since approximately 2-3/4 million people die every year in this country and approximately 25% of them smoke, and since half of all smokers will die of "smoking-related" disease, then voila! 1200 deaths a day due to smoking.
The warnings haven't deterred me. If I get a pack with a warning that I find offensive I simply ask the clerk for a different pack. Can't do that when buying cartons, though. Actually, I know a number of people who have bought those old-style cigarette cases.
I'm probably going to go to rolling my own within the next few months now that the cheapest cartons around are C$53. du Maurier doesn't sell tins of tobacco and I'm slowly trying other brands to find one I like.
Also, can you add me to your smokers ping list?
Thanks!
That is how we are fighting AIDS.
Thanks, Max!!!
I had heard that they are being collected. Good Golly. ugh!
Now TWO Congressmen in the U.S. put a bill in to do the same in the States. But I wonder if any Tobacco Company would ever consent to this.
There was a time when it was the job of the Government and the Health Coalitions to educate and find cures. But from the underbelly of the anti-smoking cartel, up popped these special interests groups, receiving lots of grant money, to really stick it to the smokers.
The general public started to believe all the lies spewed by the anti-smokers, and now it's become politically correct to trash those who choose to smoke a legal commodity.
There you go! That's what I say: don't we have a lot worse to worry about then the people wanting to smoke??
Sounds true to me. Figure about 100,00+ deaths per year due to lung cancer (most due to tobacco), factor in head and neck cancer, esophageal cancer etc. and then add in all the deaths due to heart disease and you can see how it adds up.
Now, of course, everyone dies eventually so it is more accurate to talk about 1200 premature deaths per day. And this doesn't take into account the disability caused by emphysema, vascular disease, angina etc.
Reminds me of Christopher Buckley's hilarious novel "Thank You For Smoking". As a "public service" the tobacco companies designed an anti-smoking campaign with the theme "Listen to your parents. They're right that you shouldn't smoke". Of course, the last things teens want to hear is "listen to your parents" so smoking rates went up, which is just what the tobacco companies intended.
I loved it when the tobacco spokesman accused Vermont of clogging the arteries of the nation with cheddar cheese. Buckley's best since "White House Mess".
Regards, Ivan
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