Smoking ban adverts to be investigated

Morning Advertiser ^ | 4/12/07 | Iain O'Neil

[ZGuy]

The Advertising Standards Authority is to ask for proof to substantiate claims made by the Department of Health about the dangers of passive smoking.

The watchdog will act after receiving 26 complaints about the 'Invisible Killer’ TV ads which featured cigarette smoke blowing around a wedding party and into the mouths and noses of non-smokers.

The complainants said the ad was scaremongering, would cause undue fear to non-smokers and challenged whether there is a proven link between second-hand smoke and a raised risk of contracting specific diseases.

Donna Mitchell from the ASA told morningadvertiser.co.uk: ”We will be investigating and publishing a report in due course.

“We will ask the advertising agency or the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre – which cleared the ad for use on television – to explain its rationale for clearing the ad.

“The responses will go to our ASA Council for consideration.”

Mitchell said a lot of the complaints had been about the dangers of passive smoking.

She said: “We would expect them (the respondents) to provide evidence to support their claims.”

[justiceseeker93]

Outlaw perfume.

I'm not advocating outlawing perfume, nor government outlawing smoking in private places (including privately owned bars and restaurants). The smoking policy at a particular private establishment should be set by the ownership, not the government. In most instances, market circumstances will ultimately determine where smoking is permitted and where it is not.

[boop]

"Anyone else notice the marked increase in childhood asthma since the start of smoking restrictions, or am I mistaken?"

This is correct. In fact Ted Kennedy actually blamed global warming for the increase in cases, no joke.

[justiceseeker93]

I don't think that "anecdotal evidence and neuroses" should drive laws, and I think that many of the recent laws totally banning smoking in certain places are indeed based on nothing more than that.

Having said that, I wouldn't necessarily trust anything coming out of the UN. They're not exactly known for objectivity as an organization.

You must realize that is very difficult to design reasonable scientific studies on the effects of second hand smoke. How can anyone quantify the amount of second hand smoke that he or she has been exposed to over a lifetime? Since any harmful effects on non-smokers would be intuitively correlated with the quantity of exposure, just about any of these studies would have a built-in flaw impossible to overcome.

[Old Professer]

If it saves one child’s life, it is worth any effort:

http://www.epilepsynse.org.uk/pages/info/leaflets/photo.cfm

[cgbg]

is very difficult to design reasonable scientific studies on the effects of second hand smoke. How can anyone quantify the amount of second hand smoke that he or she has been exposed to over a lifetime? Since any harmful effects on non-smokers would be intuitively correlated with the quantity of exposure, just about any of these studies would have a built-in flaw impossible to overcome.

Claims of human-caused global warming have a similar problem. They are based on "models" and not actual experiments.

Any "scientists" who make claims about second-hand smoke or human caused global warming are witch doctors, pure and simple.

The tribe listens to them at their peril.

[tiki]

Oh my gosh, yes. My SIL & BIL are old hippies, politically correct, organic eating. global warming mongering, liberal, pot smokers and they act like I’m some kind of criminal because I smoke.

[tiki]

Back in the day when my husband was a child, he used to go to the drug store and get a certain kind of cigarette made especially for relieving the symptoms of asthma. At the time he was a chronic asthmatic. He never knew what was in them but they worked.

In his early 30s he started smoking at a time of real stress in his life. He never smoked much, about a pack a week, but sometime in there his asthma went away. We have no idea what happened because not much else had changed in his life. He lives and works on a farm in the house he was born in, the same things grow year after year, there is no obvious explanation unless you think about the smoking. BTW, he did stop smoking a couple of years ago and the asthma didn't return but he does get my second-hand smoke.

I'm not seriously championing trying smoking to cure asthma, it could have been anything, but as far as the asthma went the cigs didn't seem to harm.

[libertarian27]

Oh, every darn time I see one of those “The Truth” or “InfectTruth” ads, I just want to scream — and I am not even a smoker. They’re just annoying beyond belief.
____________________________________________

LOL, every time I see or listen to those commercials - I light up a cigarette - it calms down my rage of watching them.

[justiceseeker93]

As late as c. 1950, cigarettes were advertised in some instances, even in medical journals, as having curative effects on some respiratory problems. In retrospect, there were no scientific studies to support such claims and they were probably deliberate frauds. At the time, the harmful effects of cigarette smoking were not well appreciated by the medical community, and almost half the American adult population (including a good percentage of physicians) smoked regularly.

Asthmatics today who do smoke are strongly advised to quit.

As for your husband's asthma, it is very common for childhood asthmatics to "outgrow" their asthma as they grow older without any specific treatment or change in environment or medication. It's just one of those things commonly observed that has no good medical explanation. On the other hand, there are some cases of asthma that begin in adulthood.

[Madame Dufarge]

Excellent post, She.

[Madame Dufarge]

A few years ago, I did some part-time bookkeeping work at the local Humane Society.

One day, I developed a bad headache and noticed a horrible odor seeping into all the offices.

When I asked the operations guy about it, he said that when the building was constructed the contractor put the exhaust and intake ducts next to each other. On certain windy days, the noxious fumes from the heating system would circulate back inside the building.

You couldn't smoke inside, though.

[Madame Dufarge]

I once worked with a young woman who would experience seizures from sitting in front of a computer monitor.

I imagine a strobe light would be much worse in her case.

[justiceseeker93]

I just flipped through two medical texbooks, one on pediatrics. I find no mention of "photosensitive epilepsy." I'm not denying that it is recognized as a medical entity, but let me point out that your link is not an authoritative professional medical source.

Incidentally, if strobe lights and loud noises can trigger seizures in 3-5% of epileptics, it would seem as if the phenomenon would have been observed quite a bit in discotheques in the '70s (when discos were the craze), and written up in the medical literature then. Offhand, I don't know if it was.

[hschliemann]

Out law perfume.

I understand where you're coming from,but honestly,do you think you'd prefer to smell what the perfume is designed to disguise?

[hschliemann]

The similar U.S. ads are pathetic...

The ads here in California are just as hyperbolic and fraudulent.

Especially the ones which tried to link cigarette smoking with...sexual impotence.But then they remembered the proverbial "I had an argument with my wife,biddabip,biddabop,biddaboop,and we're smoking a cigarette."

[hschliemann]

The similar U.S. ads are pathetic... The ads here in California are just as hyperbolic and fraudulent.

Especially the ones which tried to link cigarette smoking with...sexual impotence.But then they remembered the proverbial "I had an argument with my wife,biddabip,biddabop,biddaboop,and we're smoking a cigarette."

I forgot to include you in post # 35

[patton]

US Law requires Government to Support Statements, or withdraw them.

[383rr]

I’m glad to hear something is being done, even if it’s not here.

Personally, I’d like to see stanton glantz’s feet held to the fire!

[Eric Blair 2084]

They tried warning labels. Sheeple still didn't head the warnings. You're witnessing a social engineering experiment the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the Spanish Inquisition. And 4 people on FR still wonder why limited government proponents are outraged.

"What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself. The essence of political freedom is the absence of coercion of one man by his fellow men. The fundamental danger to political freedom is the concentration of power. The existence of a large measure of power in the hands of a relatively few individuals enables them to use it to coerce their fellow men. Preservation of freedom requires either the elimination of power where that is possible, or its dispersal where it cannot be eliminated. It essentially requires a system of checks and balances, like that explicitly incorporated in our Constitution..."

-- Milton Friedman, The New Liberal's Creed: Individual Freedom, Preserving Dissent Are Ultimate Goals," May 18, 1961

[Eric Blair 2084]

I do not like these smoking bans.
I do not like them Sam I am.
I do not like them in a bar,
I do not like them in a car,
I do not like them on a plane,
I do not like them an a train,
I do not like them here or there,
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like these smoking bans.
I do not like them Sam I am.