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.
But only about 1/4th of these deaths are related to smoking. You can't blame everything on smoking. What about all the non-smokers who die?
This one?
Not sure where the 1/4 comes from. Lung cancer is rare in non-smokers. Statistics bear this out. On a personal note, I'm a pathologist and I've personally diagnosed hundreds if not thousands of cases of lung cancer, very few in non-smokers. I can tell because smoking causes characteristic changes in lung tissue apart from the cancer.
Everyone dies eventually. The only question is when. The decision to smoke can be the difference between dying at age 60 or at age 75. I'm no anti-smoking Nazi. If people wish to smoke that's their choice. They should just be aware of the possible consequences of their choice.
Good thinking. Thank you.
I've had cancer twice in my life, and a team of Doctors both times. Each team ask me if I smoke, and how much. They all said my cancers were not caused by smoking, and not one of them advised me to quit.
I feel that if a person who smokes developes lung cancer, you have to dig further to find out other causes. For instance: how much exposure did this person have to mining, or asbestos, or Radon? Just because a person smokes and developes lung cancer, right away, the cancer is blamed on smoking. There are always other circumstances that one has to consider.
All the things you mentioned increase risk of lung cancer but smoking remains the overwhelmingly most important risk factor. Off the top of my head, I believe the decision to not smoke reduces the risk of lung cancer by 90%.
Why don't you just stop eating, too. I am not obese. Our Surgeon General brought out a report that Obesity has now overtaken smoking, poverty and alcoholism for health care and disease. Just stop eating, then you will be safe.
How's that.
Well, we are all adults. We know the good and the bad to everything. I know the risks of smoking. I enjoy smoking. And if it is so deadly, why hasn't it been banned long before this? Instead of just making a dirty scapegoat out of people who choose to smoke.
Like I said: I am not obese. I think the health profession better start worrying about the fat people in the U.S. One out of 10 are obese today. That can't be good.
You'd have to have been living in a cave for the last 40 years to not be aware of the possible consequences.
That's for sure, metesky! That's why I can't understand all the successful lawsuits. Adults who choose to smoke are certainly aware of any future health problems, should there be any.
I eat to live, I don't live to eat!
But they go *way* beyond the realm of their proper role when they decide that too many people choose to continue to smoke even after knowing the risks, and mandating things like those ugly photographs on cigarette packs.
Government should *NOT* assume the role of being our Mommy, trying to nag/scold/annoy/scare us into behaving the way they think we should.
Ours didn't, but the government just made it law, by the way, big T has consented to just about everything else. :-}
Dan, we are seeing more Government Intrusion every day. And not just with the smokers. I am sure you know what I mean. I'm not real happy with this.
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