New Anti-Smoking Ads

[Shoggoth2588]

I think it's overkill honestly. Instead of demonizing smokers or the big tobacco companies it seems like the ads are trying to make smokers look like lepers. I don't smoke, I don't plan to smoke but I do know people who've been smoking for decades who don't use those voice boxes. I know there's a dark side to smoking as my step-dad's mom and, great aunt are cancer survivors. If anything I think they're downplaying the cancer side of it; surly that's the more common long-term effect of smoking.

 

[Grygor]

Drink, smoke when you are 16, die at 50 from lung cancer or liver failure.

Fun fact: the median age at death for lung cancer in the US is 72. The lifetime risk of lung cancer for smokers in the US is less than 1 in 6. Ultimately, about 50% of smokers will die from smoking-related causes.

Equivalent figures for liver disease are harder to track down. Suffice it to say, however, that if a middle-aged person dies due to their alcohol abuse, the cause of death is far more likely to be suicide or car accident.

Or don't put poison in your body in excessive amounts (smoking is worse, since it's nothing BUT poison, at least wine or small amounts of alcohol have beneficial effects), live to 80 and see your grandchildren.

Little over-dramatic there? You could also smoke and drink to you heart's content and live to be 100, or live healthily only to die at 35 from an aortic dissection. Anecdotes and hypotheticals mean nothing. Also, nicotine has demonstrable short-term cognitive benefits.

And here in the US, the average 50-year-old IS a grandparent - the average 80-year-old American is a great-grandparent.

The fact of the matter is that there are many, many factors that affect how long we live, most of them out of our control. It's simply naive to say "if you stop doing activity X, you WILL live longer."

edit: Forgot to mention - second hand smoking poisons air and people nearby few times more than the smoker himself.

Fun fact: the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers is, by a huge margin, radon inhalation.

 

[Vegosiux]

As a former smoker myself, I can say such a shock campaign never really affected me. I know smoking does things to your body that aren't good. That it can cause long-term problems.

You know what anti-smoking campaigns should be saying instead?

"Every time you buy a pack of cigarettes, you throw a couple of bucks right out the window."

It doesn't even get you high.

This. It's by some distance the most pointless substance to abuse. Cannot for the life of me see what makes people want to try it in the first place - at least other drugs have side effects that kind of entice you.

Oh, well now.

Relieves stress, gets your bowels into movement if you're the type with a lazy intestinal tract, asking for a light is a great ice-breaker at parties, makes you look awesome if you can blow smoke rings...though, for most smokers I think it's merely a habit.

 

[esperandote]

Here in Mexico the put them this warinings like this in the cigarrete packs.

Part of it says that cigarretes contain subtances that are used in rat poison.

 

[default]

I smoke. It's a bit of an internal struggle for me at the moment. These ads are distasteful and slightly shocking, for sure, but it's not going to help. Yeah, it'll stop people from starting, but most smokers are people who just don't give a fuck, and these anti-smoking agencies need to realise that. I'm one of those people. Most of my friends are those people. When I can finally have the thing that makes me want to keep living I'll quit, because then I won't need it.

Smoking is just a placebo for me at the moment. If I'm angry or feeling especially down I go and light up and just feel all my worries drain away.

 

[Xan Krieger]

You know what my biggest problem with smoking is? I ran out of cigarettes.

OT: The ads are horribly distateful and should be pulled, they serve no purpose other than to gross out people. Besides, aren't the warning labels on the cigarette packs enough?

 

[Easton Dark]

Yeah.... Fuck this, I'm quitting. This is my last pack. I don't want to end up sounding like Donald Duck.

Although I was quitting anyway, so this commercial didn't really change much I guess...

Good for you, man. The less people smoking, the better.

 

[Fiad]

At this point every single person knows they are bad for you. People who smoke are aware of the risk. They are choosing to take this risk. They know they have the chance to end up like that. But just don't care.

 

[GraveeKing]

Seriously - that women deserves a medal for doing that advert.

I hope some people really start to pay attention to these kind of adverts - if only these were put in front of YouTube videos instead of the other useless crap.

 

[Lionsfan]

yes organic food is expensive. But locally farmed produce which can be brought from farm shops is of high nutrional value extremerly fresh and extremerly cheap. theres no reason to eat macdonalds every day. if you lead a life style that doesnt allow for exercise then dont consume as many calories. 2500 calories is roughly the recommended daily allownace for a man considering they lead an active life style. and unless your friend sleeps for the other 12-14 hours of the day. He has plenty of spare time. 3 hours of exercise a week is what is recommended to keep the body is some sort of decent fitness.

This is just making excuses.

What about people who live in areas that have no farmland for half the year?

 

[OZWIN]

Don't think these ads are going to stop smokers especially the ones truly deep into their addiction. While this stuff happens to smokers especially long-term ones, cancer and other issues don't end up happening to everyone who smokes even long-term smokers.

 

[F4LL3N]

It should be banned because it offers nothing.

No, it shouldn't be banned because a ban would do nothing. Or are you unfamiliar with the glowing success record of prohibition in all of its forms.

Like it or not, people choose to smoke and should be allowed to choose to smoke so long as we live in countries which place any importance on personal freedom and responsibility.

Well you can confiscate, and perhaps fine, any place that sells it. But not worry too much about if someone is growing it in their backyard. I think I read somewhere yesterday that 70% of smokers in Australia want to quit but can't. If it's less available, they'll be able to quit.

Smoking isn't a freedom we need. It's known to be one of the unhealthiest things, with literally no benefits bar a headspin when you first start smoking and then to release the tension after you're already addicted.

The smartest thing to do would be to ban it. Because on top of the above, we know tabacco companies are quite evil. We know it's marketed to kids. We know it's addictive and unhealthy.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

It's so bullshit. These ads and stuff like thetruth.com never tell you near enough facts. If I were to have a stoke right now for completely unrelated reasons you can bet that smoking contributed just a tiny bit to it and thus it contributed (i've been smoking for two years). What they don't tell you is that it takes several packs a day to do any amount of significant damage before you're in your forties or fifties. Smoking and second-had smoke isn't as bad as the people who make these commercials would have you believe - this is not everyone. These are extreme cases of people who either couldn't control themselves or didn't know the risk.

It doesn't even get you high.

This. It's by some distance the most pointless substance to abuse. Cannot for the life of me see what makes people want to try it in the first place - at least other drugs have side effects that kind of entice you.

Hahahahahaha, read this:
http://smokingsides.com/docs/whysmoke.html

 

[Dogstile]

Pointless as all hell. Smokers know what's going to happen to them. They just don't give a shit about it and quite frankly they generate enough money for us to not be bothering them about it all the damn time.

 

[MarlonBlazed]

Drink, smoke when you are 16, die at 50 from lung cancer or liver failure.

Fun fact: the median age at death for lung cancer in the US is 72. The lifetime risk of lung cancer for smokers in the US is less than 1 in 6. Ultimately, about 50% of smokers will die from smoking-related causes.

Equivalent figures for liver disease are harder to track down. Suffice it to say, however, that if a middle-aged person dies due to their alcohol abuse, the cause of death is far more likely to be suicide or car accident.

Or don't put poison in your body in excessive amounts (smoking is worse, since it's nothing BUT poison, at least wine or small amounts of alcohol have beneficial effects), live to 80 and see your grandchildren.

Little over-dramatic there? You could also smoke and drink to you heart's content and live to be 100, or live healthily only to die at 35 from an aortic dissection. Anecdotes and hypotheticals mean nothing. Also, nicotine has demonstrable short-term cognitive benefits.

And here in the US, the average 50-year-old IS a grandparent - the average 80-year-old American is a great-grandparent.

The fact of the matter is that there are many, many factors that affect how long we live, most of them out of our control. It's simply naive to say "if you stop doing activity X, you WILL live longer."

edit: Forgot to mention - second hand smoking poisons air and people nearby few times more than the smoker himself.

Fun fact: the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers is, by a huge margin, radon inhalation.

Hey people... Second hand smoking as a threat to non-smokers doesn't exist. I quoted you because you bring up a lot of great points in a way I couldn't do without ending up swearing. Thanks Grygor.

Don't ever say extremist scare tactics don't work.

 

[Namehere]

as someone who has just quit smoking over a month ago now, i think people who smoke should have to pay for their own medical care, and if they are stupid enough not to listen to the facts and not provide their own medi-care then i supose they deserve to die.

Same goes for obese people. People should take care of themselves, if they dont want to they shouldnt expect the state to look after them at tax payers expense, they should take responsibility for their actions.

So yeah, these adverts should be banned, the earth is too poulated anyway.

(from uk where the nhs is all ready under massive strain.)

Who needs adds? We've got trolls! They deserve to die! Get the pitch forks, the sniffer dogs, the burning torches, and lynch em all! START WITH CANCER WOMAN! Surely we can find her, we have her picture, both with and with out hair.

The ads are disturbing, because nobody wishes to offend that woman or what she's attempting to do. But at the same time these ads aren't changing minds.

The guy who posted the above drivel about letting people die, smokers and fat people alike, isn't changing minds either. But its hard to change another being's mind when your own is so two dimensional. I pity the fellow mind you, it must be hard to justify his or her own life to him or herself every day knowing just how over populated the world is and how much it doesn't need another idiot to advocate killing or letting more people die. After all it doesn't take a genius to just let people die, we've been doing that since people started getting born.

Of course this is the super smart troll. I have no doubt, humanitarian he is what with letting all those people die for the good of whatever their civilization is without them, he will recognize that smoking causes long term illness and smoking related illnesses that have a later onset, and recognize that he too, at even the slight risk that he won't live his fullest life and produce enough for the economy, should be tossed on the great bonfire. After all an army doesn't train a physically weak person whose health is unreliable, they loose their services too quickly. Why should a tax base suffer the presence of such people at all? No. No good came of anyone so selfish as to smoke. There was never a Winston Churchill, or a Roosevelt. If it were a fair world Hitler would still be leading us with his smoke free ways. Oh what a piece of work is man, WHAT A WORLD HAVE WE CREATED TO LIVE IN!

Oh cruel world, take this spear from out my mouth! Quench this burning fire!

Yea... Impressive...

 

[flarty]

What about people who live in areas that have no farmland for half the year?

what happens to your farmland the other half of the year? Frozen veg is also cheap and loses no nutrional value.

as someone who has just quit smoking over a month ago now, i think people who smoke should have to pay for their own medical care, and if they are stupid enough not to listen to the facts and not provide their own medi-care then i supose they deserve to die.

Same goes for obese people. People should take care of themselves, if they dont want to they shouldnt expect the state to look after them at tax payers expense, they should take responsibility for their actions.

So yeah, these adverts should be banned, the earth is too poulated anyway.

(from uk where the nhs is all ready under massive strain.)

Who needs adds? We've got trolls! They deserve to die! Get the pitch forks, the sniffer dogs, the burning torches, and lynch em all! START WITH CANCER WOMAN! Surely we can find her, we have her picture, both with and with out hair.

The ads are disturbing, because nobody wishes to offend that woman or what she's attempting to do. But at the same time these ads aren't changing minds.

The guy who posted the above drivel about letting people die, smokers and fat people alike, isn't changing minds either. But its hard to change another being's mind when your own is so two dimensional. I pity the fellow mind you, it must be hard to justify his or her own life to him or herself every day knowing just how over populated the world is and how much it doesn't need another idiot to advocate killing or letting more people die. After all it doesn't take a genius to just let people die, we've been doing that since people started getting born.

Of course this is the super smart troll. I have no doubt, humanitarian he is what with letting all those people die for the good of whatever their civilization is without them, he will recognize that smoking causes long term illness and smoking related illnesses that have a later onset, and recognize that he too, at even the slight risk that he won't live his fullest life and produce enough for the economy, should be tossed on the great bonfire. After all an army doesn't train a physically weak person whose health is unreliable, they loose their services too quickly. Why should a tax base suffer the presence of such people at all? No. No good came of anyone so selfish as to smoke. There was never a Winston Churchill, or a Roosevelt. If it were a fair world Hitler would still be leading us with his smoke free ways. Oh what a piece of work is man, WHAT A WORLD HAVE WE CREATED TO LIVE IN!

Oh cruel world, take this spear from out my mouth! Quench this burning fire!

Yea... Impressive...

Yeah my point was they should arrange their own private health care. Seems more than fair. I guess you smoke.
Also theres a difference from stating ones opinion and changing minds. Although it seems i am not entitled to mine, seems like you and hitler have more in common.

And if you think what im saying is bad maybe you should look at the american healthcare system.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

as someone who has just quit smoking over a month ago now, i think people who smoke should have to pay for their own medical care, and if they are stupid enough not to listen to the facts and not provide their own medi-care then i supose they deserve to die.

The same argument could be made for fat people.

I love anti-smoking ads. Reminds me how fucking useless the government is. "Don't smoke or do drugs! [small][small]But please keep smoking, because we can tax that.[/small][/small]

 

[flarty]

i did apply it to fat people.

 

[Gerishnakov]

This is a slightly different issue in the UK because of the National Health Service.

People who smoke and end up with debilitating diseases as a result, but have no private health insurance, cost the British taxpayer money.

I'm gonna call you out on this because, to put it bluntly, I'm sick of this claim.

I'll use the 2005-06 date range as an example as these are the first stats that I found on my ever so brief search. Although I researched this a while back and found that things were pretty much the same, except more tax was paid.

So, in 2005-06, smokers cost the NHS £5.2bn. Tax revenue from tobacco sales was £9.8bn.

I'll let you work out the difference. I'll also have to ask how happy you'd be if smoking was banned, therefore adding increased taxes to everything else, seeing as the government wouldn't just let all that income disappear.

Tax revenue is probably the only reason smoking is still legal

So you think it's ok for the government to make money off stuff that causes harm to people. That's as bad as saying it's perfectly legitimate for companies to add harmful substances to food or drink products if it increases sales.

I don't quibble your figures for tax income from tobacco, but neither do I simply think of that in isolation. If smoking were eradicated taxes and spending levels would have to change - big deal, these things change all the time.

they're trying to ban everything else that's hazardous to our health

Evidence? Most other things proven harmful are already banned, including some things not particularly harmful.

I don't plan on lasting long enough to feel the effects anyway.........I like a lot of other things that are hazardous (and sometimes illegal)!!

So who's going to pay for your healthcare as you die? Do you think that you've paid your dues in taxes, and are therefore free to do what you like what public money? I'm afraid that's not how the system works. I pay taxes, I am not ok with people frittering away public money through their own stupidity.

Good luck with your short life, I prefer living thanks.