Offensive "Truth" Ads

www.thetruth.com ^

[presidentbowen]

I have to say that I am very offended with the most recent ad by Truth, the anti Big Tobacco radical organization. The ad depicts young people shaving their heads to represent lung cancer patients. I am not a smoker, but I think the ad if shown during family programming could disturb a lot of people. If you venture to go there, email them to complain at their web site. I don't see any tobacco company at fault here, it has always been a persons choice to smoke or not.

[singlemomofone]

Have you visited their web site?!?! Check out the "Shards O' Glass" site, linked by a graphic found on the bottom of the "truth" page. This kind of sarcastic propaganda is not what the money is supposed to go for. This site is financed by the tobacco settlement and is supposed to be used - per the settlement - solely for true education for kids about the hazards of smoking. Not for this radical agenda.
I actually wrote the attorneys involved in the case a couple years ago complaining about this site and their commercials. I told them that the funds are not being used as they are supposed to be....and they couldn't care less.

[Gabz]

(sorry I just came across this post....it's a couple of days old but never out of date)

You are a great woman for writing the attorneys involved, but it is not surprising they weren't interested in what you had to say. The garbage spewed out by the "truth" campaign is 99% fictitious and 100% paid for by smokers who buy their cigarettes from the big 5 tobacco companies.

As more and more smokers realize this and find other brands to smoke or other means of getting their cigarettes (making their own or growing their own) the states are starting to panic, as are the folks like those funding "truth"........their fnding is based solely on cigarette smokers continuing to buy the products of the companies that sold out their customers.

Is smoking a habit that may cause health problems somewhere down the line? Possibly....but so are a lot of other things.

[metesky]

Smoking, while clearly a free choice for an adult to make, does indeed sicken and kill, some of the people who choose to smoke, but not all or even most of them.

[Just another Joe]

I'm not really offended by the pictures.

I'm offended by the condescending (we know better than you) attitude and the fact that all of this is paid for by the smokers themselves thanks to the Master Settlement Agreement between the big 5 tobacco companies (see sold out) and the states.

The states AND the anytismoker organizations are starting to panic because more people are starting to find alternatives to the big 5. Only the big 5 pay to the MSA.

[cdbull23]

"Young people are too stupid to tell, you see."



Ah, I think you over-generalize a bit here, no? Still, I do agree that many young people are influenced by what they see in the media. But I know for a fact that many young people also question much of what they read, hear, see, etc...and I'm sure some not-so-young people are "stupid" in that sense, too.


Plus, I don't think young people use the terms "hip", "edgy", or "Gen-Y"...haha :)

[muir_redwoods]

Spend as much time as I have in an oncology ward and maybe you'll have a different take, It's not about numbers when it hits people you know. Any fool who actively increases his odds of cancer for no reason has an awful surprise coming. I've talked to lung cancer patients who actually cry over their decision to smoke and wish with all they have that they could have a "do-over" but I've never talked to a primary site Lung CA patient who hadn't smoked.

Self-delusion is the oldest human trait, I suppose, but there is absolutely no doubt that smoking tobacco causes cancer. If you don't agree answer my question. How many smokers would be glad that their Adult children took up the habit? How many smokers would encourage their adult children to try the delightful and relaxing activity of smoking? If no one would, why not?

[bondjamesbond]

My "hip, edgy" language was a sarcastic take on a riff you might hear from some clueless marketing rep.

I broke the first rule of FreeRepublic: All sarcasm must be clearly labeled.

[Rebelbase]

I quit smoking 10 years ago. At the time I had 2-3 pack a day habit. I loved smoking. A cigarette was better than a cup of coffee for waking up first thing in the morning.

It was pure hell to quit, but my lungs thank me each day now that I don't wake up coughing up crap from my lungs.

That said, it astounds me that some people here at FR refuse to acknowledge that there are smoking related illnesses.

I wonder how many in the pro-tobacco crowd here have been diagnosed with a smoking related illness.

[muir_redwoods]

One hopes none of them are sick but I'm too much of a realist to believe that. Most would argue with a description of themselves as addicts but the pathology suggests an addictive denial of the obvious. It is odd how a site dedicated to the ideals of freedom can attract people who are willingly enslaved to a drug. I was there once too but, like you, I escaped. It is about the most difficult abdication to quit so I try to be understanding because being argumentative won't work. I wish them all luck and that they figure out how to be free before tobacco figures out how to kill them.