New Anti-Smoking Ads

[Treblaine]

Makes sense. Cannabis has very little negative effect on you anyway so just smoke that instead?

OT: All things in moderation, I don't habitually smoke but the occasional fine cuban cigar with some good scotch is a very nice thing indeed. Only 1 or 2 a year, maybe, do I smoke. Otherwise drink is what's slowly killing me.

Indeed. But people tend to pack spliffs with tobacco anyway to fill it out, especially if they already smoke it without weed. Which is stupid. As you say, just smoke weed instead.

I also have the occasional cigar, and also with a drink, so high-five to that. I always laugh at the warnings on the packets when I do though - "You can give up" ... one pack of cigars a year? Hah.

High-five is returned!

I know we have loads here in the UK, grisly pictures too, and I have only a few a year > >

Yeah everyone I know packs out their weed with tobacco, says weed doesnt burn well and shit. They're just cheap and lazy. That said I haven't had weed in years and really shouldn't, could lose me a career xD

There isn't much special about tobacco in causing cancer. Burning almost anything and inhaling the smoke is going to contribute to cancer and damaging your airways, largely to an immediate and permanent extent. Weed is only limited by how it inebriates you too much to smoke 20 cigarettes a day like smokers can. I don't know many who can smoke even 5 joints a day. But weed encourages you to hold in the smoke and really even smoking one or two cigarettes (either tobacco or cannabis cigarettes) hugely increases your risk of an early death.

If there wasn't any chemical high associated with the inhalation of such smoke every smoker would consider it cruel torture to have to inhale and hold in such volumes of smoke. Pleasure association is amazing at tricking our mind into accepting damage being done to our bodies.

And there is not reason to smoke cannabis for any medical condition, they are available in pill form or even an aerosol spray like an asthma inhaler. At the very least, use a vapouriser.

It should be fundamental inescapable logic that inhaling smoke is bad for your health.

 

[Treblaine]

Maybe I should have rephrased that to "Without the law stopping you".

If you drink petrol, that is grounds for the law to force you to stop like being forced to attend a rehab clinic or even committed to a mental asylum. But I don't know in the UK or US of anyone being forced by the threat of some aspect of active imprisonment if they don't stop smoking. Same with self-harming with cutting or attempting to commit suicide, the authorities will actively stop you doing that with the power of the law.

I think even on balance, they know it wouldn't be very rebellious if they shorten their lives so they can never collect their pension or be disabled by the diseases of smoking.

Snippity snip.

I think they don't consider the long term consequences when they're 15, I know I never did, you tend to still think you're farily untouchable at that age and not really concern yourself with what may happen in 30, 40, 50 years. Though I far from endorse smoking from that age or indeed habitual smoking at all.

I think imprisonment for smoking would be a nice bit of freedom infringement, besides the government in the UK, at least, makes a huge amount of money on tobacco taxes so it's never going away.

Commiting suicide should be easy if you actually want to do it, and don't simply do it as a cry for help. Getting a bit close to home on this one. As for self-harm, I used to, very rarely I breakdown a bit and still do, no authority has ever intervened and to my knowledge there are no laws prohibiting it, and it's a very complicated issue best left for another time.

People should be free to make their own decisions about smoking, or drinking, or taking their own life. But thats just my insignificant opinion.

It's illegal to sell or even give cigarettes to under 18-year olds in most places precisely because of that. Many areas you can be put on probation and severely fined for being caught smoking even tobacco under the age of 18. Precisely because they are underage, below the age of majority, it's accepted that children are hugely limited in their freedoms due to their immaturity and ignorance.

Just because the law doesn't know, doesn't mean they wouldn't try to stop if they did know.

I don't want to get into a discussion of euthanasia or mercy-killing but I definitely oppose an unlimited right to commit suicide, think about all the religious cults who tell lies of a wonderful afterlife if they kill themselves. Think about the Jim Jones cult, HUNDREDS of people killing themselves in a mass suicide to get to heaven. The law cannot simply allow that. A right to suicide will be abused by cults. It will be abused by bullies. Life is too precious to allow such a thing that could so quickly end lives.

It's a matter of degrees. See there is some time to persuade a smoker to stop smoking. But trying to convince a death cult to not drink the cyanide-cool-aid is just not enough time.

 

[The White Hunter]

There isn't much special about tobacco in causing cancer. Burning almost anything and inhaling the smoke is going to contribute to cancer and damaging your airways, largely to an immediate and permanent extent. Weed is only limited by how it inebriates you too much to smoke 20 cigarettes a day like smokers can. I don't know many who can smoke even 5 joints a day. But weed encourages you to hold in the smoke and really even smoking one or two cigarettes (either tobacco or cannabis cigarettes) hugely increases your risk of an early death.

If there wasn't any chemical high associated with the inhalation of such smoke every smoker would consider it cruel torture to have to inhale and hold in such volumes of smoke. Pleasure association is amazing at tricking our mind into accepting damage being done to our bodies.

And there is not reason to smoke cannabis for any medical condition, they are available in pill form or even an aerosol spray like an asthma inhaler. At the very least, use a vapouriser.

It should be fundamental inescapable logic that inhaling smoke is bad for your health.

Okay. If you smoke just the cannabis there's significantl;y less tar and a hell of alot less nicotine. Tar destroys your lungs gradually and reduces the capacity whilst nicotine is highly toxic and highly addictive, the combination of these two properties results in a chemical dependance on tobacco which causes substantial progressive damage to the lungs. It may not be a good idea to smoke anyway, but the components that cause the damage to cells and lead to cancer over prolonged use are much less common in cannabis than they are in tobacco.

Conversely it's actually quite difficult to become chemically dependant on cannabis, if you smoke cannabis with tobacco, as most people do, you associate the nicotine delivery from the tobacco with the cannabis and as a resdult develop a proxy dependency on cannabis. Which can be also be damaging.

Moderation is key.

Cannabis is a pretty good painkiller in my experience, but it's got nothing on my friends whisky and wine for dulling pain.

I should also point out that logic is typically flawed as a justification. Logically the Earth is orbited by the sun, because we can observe it travelling across the sky from the Earth's surface. However we know that not to be true due to scientific enquiry into the nature of our solar system. Logic is a self evident thing that can be very flawed upon inspection and examination of the face value.

Also, people are not logical or rational things.

 

[The White Hunter]

Just because the law doesn't know, doesn't mean they wouldn't try to stop if they did know.

I don't want to get into a discussion of euthanasia or mercy-killing but I definitely oppose an unlimited right to commit suicide, think about all the religious cults who tell lies of a wonderful afterlife if they kill themselves. Think about the Jim Jones cult, HUNDREDS of people killing themselves in a mass suicide to get to heaven. The law cannot simply allow that. A right to suicide will be abused by cults. It will be abused by bullies. Life is too precious to allow such a thing that could so quickly end lives.

It's a matter of degrees. See there is some time to persuade a smoker to stop smoking. But trying to convince a death cult to not drink the cyanide-cool-aid is just not enough time.

Okay seriously, don't warp my point, your words in my mouth taste like the vilest of ash. A personal right to end your life if you see fit is not the same as a large group of religious nutcases committing mass suicide.

No, lunatics should not be allowed to whip hundreds of people into ritual suicide to get into some promised false-heaven.

But if I personally reach the point where I have nothing to live for then that's my own choice.

Simple.

 

[omega 616]

How old do you have to be to smoke these days? 16? 18? Anyway, by that kind of age if you don't know smoking has a high chance of causing you problems then you're a moron.

So everybody who smokes knows the facts about smoking and what it can lead to, so why do they need to be educated? It's like trying to convert Christians to Atheism.

Why not just start releasing adverts about the damages of drinking or stabbing plug sockets with a knife? Talk about trying to teach the bleeding obvious.

Um there are adverts about the dangers of drinking and also the dangers of electricity.

And yeah, it does take just a bit more than "you should know for yourself" about smoking. So many are just not getting the quiet restrained message, they don't want to hear about how their favourite habit is going to causes anything hugely bad to happen.

Well in my entire life, most of which was sat in front of a tv (up until a year ago anyway) and I have never seen an anti drinking or anti electric advert in my life!

I have seen plenty of "don't drink and drive" but no "drinking damages your liver etc" ones. Oh sorry, on alcohol adverts you always see, in size 5 font and usually in the bottom corner, "drink responsibly" on the very last screen of the advert ....

No, everybody knows inhaling smoke is bad for you, even as a little kid I would nag my mum to stop smoking. There should be no adverts to stop you smoking, there should be no "smoking kills" or pictures of fucked up lungs on packets ... if you know smoking is bad but continue to do it you will get no sympathy from me.

Same goes to alcoholics and drug users.

 

[Treblaine]

There ARE adverts showing what happens should such an impact occur:

No, that's not enough. They need to show the worst case scenario, just like in the case of smoking.

There are also adverts for the dangers of excessive drinking, from the biological health risks of its toxic nature to how it affects your judgement.

Are they as shocking as the smoking ads?

When did I EVER say I opposed PSA videos about other common risks? How could you confer that from:

Strawman, I never said that. My opposition was towards shock ads like the ones used against smoking. It's perfectly acceptable to use non-shock ads for every single other issue but for smoking it's a "requirement" because people are too stupid to make their own decisions?

"I think for most people if they really knew the risks and realities of smoking they would never even start."

No, that is not the reality of smoking just like a car crash that destroys your legs is not the reality of driving a car. Those are WORST CASE SCENARIOS and they are always gruesome. However, the point of these ads, at least supposedly, is to teach people about the potential risks of certain actions, not to scare them into submission.

People SHOULD be warned of risks and warned of them in a human way that they can accept them and not by human weakness ignore or falsely dismiss them.

And that's a "human way" to inform people of the dangers of smoking? By showing the most gruesome worst case scenarios? Why is the CDC or any other medical organization not doing the same for driving cars or drinking?

They did show the worst case scenario. They freaking died. They showed his lungs being crushed. How is this for shocking:


Also for the risks of cooking even.

"If you care about people's well being and health you would raise awareness of these dangers as well. Otherwise, you're just hypocrites."

There was a definite implication. Why would you even suggest I didn't propose awareness for other dangers?

Cancer is not even the "worst case scenario" of smoking IT IS A HUGELY LIKELY SCENARIO! The treatment that left her in that condition is NOT EXCEPTIONAL. Take it from me who has assisted in the treatment of so many smoking conditions and lost several relatives to smoking related diseases, cancer is not the exception and disability from the treatment is likely. And when a smoker gets cancer, that is how aggressive they smut be and because their body is so damaged by the smoking itself the treatment is much tougher. Smoking is a bane of medicine, it's hard to even perform surgery as their smoke exposure leaves them with reduced ability to heal.

That shocking video the OP posted is not exceptional of smoking, it is typical of smoking. Not seen so common as such cancers were normally fatal, now they are just hugely disabling with treatment. This doesn't seek to scare, there is no eerie eerie lighting, weird sound effect or dramatic angles, it just frankly shows them. If that is scary then the advert did not make it scary, the SMOKING DID THAT! If this scares smokers then they should be afraid of Smoking PSA adverts, they should be afraid of smoking ITSELF. Don't shoot the messenger.

By a human way I mean SHOW it. If we were computers you could just write down in a twitter message: "Smoking can lead to your trachea being surgically removed and extensive radiation treatment that causes hair lost and wasting" does not get through at the human level. It's easy to file under a lower priority than it actually is.

Smoking is no exception and even if it was, so what? Just because the public aren't being informed of one danger doesn't make it acceptable to not inform them of another danger. Two wrongs don't make a right. I think more needs to be done to teach of the dangers of alcoholism and obesity but those are tricky. Any level of smoking is bad, but we have been exposed to fat and alcohol all of human existence, we can healthily consume moderate amounts and any PSA must be careful not to resort to hyperbole like the "this is your brain in drugs" that devalue ALL PSA announcements.

Anti-obesity ads have to tread a fine line of not promoting anorexia. Anti-alcoholism ads mainly focus on the dangers of drunkenness as it is the leading cause of death with alcohol, how it causes accidents and is a contributory factor in violence though some focus on the biological toxicity.

 

[Treblaine]

There isn't much special about tobacco in causing cancer. Burning almost anything and inhaling the smoke is going to contribute to cancer and damaging your airways, largely to an immediate and permanent extent. Weed is only limited by how it inebriates you too much to smoke 20 cigarettes a day like smokers can. I don't know many who can smoke even 5 joints a day. But weed encourages you to hold in the smoke and really even smoking one or two cigarettes (either tobacco or cannabis cigarettes) hugely increases your risk of an early death.

If there wasn't any chemical high associated with the inhalation of such smoke every smoker would consider it cruel torture to have to inhale and hold in such volumes of smoke. Pleasure association is amazing at tricking our mind into accepting damage being done to our bodies.

And there is not reason to smoke cannabis for any medical condition, they are available in pill form or even an aerosol spray like an asthma inhaler. At the very least, use a vapouriser.

It should be fundamental inescapable logic that inhaling smoke is bad for your health.

Okay. If you smoke just the cannabis there's significantl;y less tar and a hell of alot less nicotine. Tar destroys your lungs gradually and reduces the capacity whilst nicotine is highly toxic and highly addictive, the combination of these two properties results in a chemical dependance on tobacco which causes substantial progressive damage to the lungs. It may not be a good idea to smoke anyway, but the components that cause the damage to cells and lead to cancer over prolonged use are much less common in cannabis than they are in tobacco.

Conversely it's actually quite difficult to become chemically dependant on cannabis, if you smoke cannabis with tobacco, as most people do, you associate the nicotine delivery from the tobacco with the cannabis and as a resdult develop a proxy dependency on cannabis. Which can be also be damaging.

Moderation is key.

Cannabis is a pretty good painkiller in my experience, but it's got nothing on my friends whisky and wine for dulling pain.

I should also point out that logic is typically flawed as a justification. Logically the Earth is orbited by the sun, because we can observe it travelling across the sky from the Earth's surface. However we know that not to be true due to scientific enquiry into the nature of our solar system. Logic is a self evident thing that can be very flawed upon inspection and examination of the face value.

Also, people are not logical or rational things.

Less tar and nicotine? The important thing is the amount of carcinogens and damaging toxins that are deposited in the body, where is your source that less of those are deposited per cigarette of cannabis versus tobacco?

I understand that cannabis is not chemically dependant like even tobacco smoking, but it is habit forming in the same way eating at McDonalds in habit forming.

Unfortunately any exposure to smoke significantly and substantially contributes to the risks of cancer, even second hand smoke as has been established. You should that regularly inhaling smoke will hugely increase your risk of cancer and other severe health problems, there is no moderation with smoking, any amount is just too dangerous. If you wish to consume cannabis, then realise smoking it is not the only way, you can eat it or use a vapouriser.

Also you should never self-medicate for pain, consult an expert on such matters.

No, logically the earth rotates around the sun if you ACTUALLY STUDY THE EVIDENCE beyond simply making a glance assumption. Astronomers who studied the planets and the stars relative to the earth used LOGIC to discover this. That is the difference between "common sense" and Science.

Rember logic is a broad term. Logic can be rational or irrational. Irrational logic would be something like "Comic Book Logic".

Just because the law doesn't know, doesn't mean they wouldn't try to stop if they did know.

I don't want to get into a discussion of euthanasia or mercy-killing but I definitely oppose an unlimited right to commit suicide, think about all the religious cults who tell lies of a wonderful afterlife if they kill themselves. Think about the Jim Jones cult, HUNDREDS of people killing themselves in a mass suicide to get to heaven. The law cannot simply allow that. A right to suicide will be abused by cults. It will be abused by bullies. Life is too precious to allow such a thing that could so quickly end lives.

It's a matter of degrees. See there is some time to persuade a smoker to stop smoking. But trying to convince a death cult to not drink the cyanide-cool-aid is just not enough time.

Okay seriously, don't warp my point, your words in my mouth taste like the vilest of ash. A personal right to end your life if you see fit is not the same as a large group of religious nutcases committing mass suicide.

No, lunatics should not be allowed to whip hundreds of people into ritual suicide to get into some promised false-heaven.

But if I personally reach the point where I have nothing to live for then that's my own choice.

Simple.

Why is it not the same? They each have an individual right and they could be influenced by anything they like, including some religious guy. Remember Christians all believe in a heaven in the afterlife.

But I see you feel very strongly about the right to a personal right to end your life and it would be going too far off topic to argue with you otherwise, just don't be to surprised as it IS a reality (regardless of it's morality) that people can be imprisoned in mental hospitals to prevent them ending their life.

If by "nothing to live for" you mean severely paralysed, in pain and with no prospect of recovery and a near impending death, that is an aspect of Euthanasia that I consider quite separate from suicide and didn't want to go into that, I think the law should be different on that. But if someone wants to end their life simply because they damaged their hand and can't be a musician any more or because their wife left them, I think they should be stopped. There is a difference between rationally ending ones life because there really is nothing to live for and being depressed and feeling like there is nothing to live for. Or that what they do have to live for is nothing compared to the infinite of an (imaginary) afterlife that they can get by suicide.

 

[The White Hunter]

No, logically the earth rotates around the sun if you ACTUALLY STUDY THE EVIDENCE beyond simply making a glance assumption. Astronomers who studied the planets and the stars relative to the earth used LOGIC to discover this. That is the difference between "common sense" and Science.

Rember logic is a broad term. Logic can be rational or irrational. Irrational logic would be something like "Comic Book Logic".

Ignoring the rest because it's a waste of time to argue with people over the internet and I'm bored of it now. Agree to disagree.

Anyway, I recently wrote a paper on Galileo's Corpernicanism. You've misunderstood what I mean by logic. Studying the evidence is not logic, it's scientific enquiry and application of scientific method to reach a reasonable and accurate concusion. Ptolemy, like Aristotle before him, applied logic and "common sense" to dictate the Geocentric universe. Copernicus and later Galileo disproved this through observation and recording of results over extended periods of time, which is not applying logic, it's applying what became modern scientific method.

 

[Treblaine]

How old do you have to be to smoke these days? 16? 18? Anyway, by that kind of age if you don't know smoking has a high chance of causing you problems then you're a moron.

So everybody who smokes knows the facts about smoking and what it can lead to, so why do they need to be educated? It's like trying to convert Christians to Atheism.

Why not just start releasing adverts about the damages of drinking or stabbing plug sockets with a knife? Talk about trying to teach the bleeding obvious.

Um there are adverts about the dangers of drinking and also the dangers of electricity.

And yeah, it does take just a bit more than "you should know for yourself" about smoking. So many are just not getting the quiet restrained message, they don't want to hear about how their favourite habit is going to causes anything hugely bad to happen.

Well in my entire life, most of which was sat in front of a tv (up until a year ago anyway) and I have never seen an anti drinking or anti electric advert in my life!

I have seen plenty of "don't drink and drive" but no "drinking damages your liver etc" ones. Oh sorry, on alcohol adverts you always see, in size 5 font and usually in the bottom corner, "drink responsibly" on the very last screen of the advert ....

No, everybody knows inhaling smoke is bad for you, even as a little kid I would nag my mum to stop smoking. There should be no adverts to stop you smoking, there should be no "smoking kills" or pictures of fucked up lungs on packets ... if you know smoking is bad but continue to do it you will get no sympathy from me.

Same goes to alcoholics and drug users.

What country do you live in? In the UK I've seen enough.

Admittedly, there is not enough focus on how drinking itself kills but you can see why the focus is so much on drink driving as drink driving is the main way alcholog contributes to deaths.

"if you know smoking is bad but continue to do it you will get no sympathy from me."

this isn't about getting sympathy from people like you to smokers. This is about getting smokers to stop. Nicotine does a very good job of contradicting our natural aversions with a pleasure association with inhaling. We are all too much like Pavlov's dogs, easily conditioned with pain and pleasure. Nicotine is very addictive from how pleasurable and soothing it is, evocative demonstration of its destructive effects are needed as being quietly told just doesn't get past the addiction bias.

 

[Treblaine]

They did show the worst case scenario. They freaking died. They showed his lungs being crushed. How is this for shocking:

Really? That's the same as this?


It's nowhere near as visceral. Besides, that's a warning against speeding. Even if you don't speed the chance of dying or being permanently disabled is still there. After all, anti smoking ads don't target just heavy smokers.

Cancer is not even the "worst case scenario" of smoking IT IS A HUGELY LIKELY SCENARIO!

Paralysis is not even the "worst case scenario" of driving, IT'S A HUGELY LIKELY SCENARIO!

That shocking video the OP posted is not exceptional of smoking, it is typical of smoking.

My fucking ass it is. You're talking out of your ass and you know it. If you've got a vendetta against smoking, more power to you. What you cannot do is spread misinformation using shock tactics. They should make the risks clear, they shouldn't lie to people. The majority of smokers won't end up like that lady in the video and whilst there are certain health risks associated with smoking that doesn't mean "shock ads" should be used to dissuade people.

the SMOKING DID THAT!

Aha. There are numerous examples of people being permanently disabled because of driving but last I checked, we don't try and lower the ammount of people using a car. For crying out loud, we even let car manufacturers advertise their products on TV! Same for alcohol! Talk about hypocrisy.

If this scares smokers then they should be afraid of Smoking PSA adverts, they should be afraid of smoking ITSELF. Don't shoot the messenger.

Aha, and if I show a kid who broke his neck because he fell off a swing or something that would be perfectly fine because after all, shock tactics are best tactics right!?

By a human way I mean SHOW it.

OKAY, so show the dangers of driving, playing, walking, eating, drinking alcohol, drinking water, sitting on a chair, playing football, playing american football, swimming, boxing, riding a bike, driving a car, working out, masturbating, listening to loud music and sex. After all, the purpose of these ads would be to warn people, not to prevent an activity just because you hate it. Right?

Smoking is no exception and even if it was, so what? Just because the public aren't being informed of one danger doesn't make it acceptable to not inform them of another danger.

Actually, it makes you a complete an utter hypocrite. It shows that you don't really care about people, you just wan to eliminate a habit because you dislike it.

I think more needs to be done to teach of the dangers of alcoholism and obesity but those are tricky. Any level of smoking is bad, but we have been exposed to fat and alcohol all of human existence, we can healthily consume moderate amounts and any PSA must be careful not to resort to hyperbole like the "this is your brain in drugs" that devalue ALL PSA announcements.

Any ammount of saturated fat causes imediate and irrepairable damage to your body. See how easy that is? Instead of acknowledging that the issue is much more complex than that we can simply resort to catchphrases! How fun!

Anti-alcoholism ads mainly focus on the dangers of drunkenness as it is the leading cause of death with alcohol, how it causes accidents and is a contributory factor in violence though some focus on the biological toxicity.

Alcohol causes immediate damage to your liver! Man, this is easy.

Yes, I think the son crushing his own mother's skull is pretty visceral.

You are right that Smoking PSA's don't just target heavy smokers because even smoking only 1-2 cigarettes a day hugely increases your risk of cancer and other diseases, heavy smoking just makes it even worse.

Speed laws are not arbitrary, road safety experts have them set up very well

Paralysis is not a hugely likely scenario of driving. In the years I worked in the hospital day in day out it was smokers with smoking related injuries, so rarely a car related injury from someone who was actually driving, and even then they were breaking the law at thetime (speeding, drinking and/or no seat belt). A lot of severe injuries from cycling. There need to be more PSA of the dangers to cyclists.

That advert did not lie, there is no deception. Cancer is a real likelihood for smoking. Deal with that. Don't go accusing vendettas. The video never said it was the guaranteed outcome for the majority of smokers, similar odds to playing Russian roulette. Would you play Russian roulette with your trachea?!?!?

This driving/smoking comparison is preposterous. If everyone follow the safety laws then being severely disabled or killed by driving is insignificantly low possibility. It is ridiculous to try to reduce the amount of people using cars when all that is needed is to get people to use cars safely WHICH IS WHAT IS DONE! Cars are not in themselves dangerous to drive. Smoking is inherently dangerous, there is NO safe level of consumption.

Swing sets are in fact a calculated risks. Although there is a very small chance of children injuring themselves the benefit they gain from better coordination, risk management and fitness adds.

Dangers of driving, playing, walking, eating, drinking alcohol, drinking water, sitting on a chair, playing football, playing american football, swimming, boxing, riding a bike, driving a car, working out, masturbating, listening to loud music and sex.

Driving: plenty of PSA on those
Playing: What dangers for such a general term?
Eating: Yes, ever heard of the Heimlich manoeuvre? That's PSA on those risks.
Sitting on a chair: is not dangerous
Playing football: risks are outlined by the sport organiser
Swimming: life guards
(You said driving TWICE)
Working out: gyms outline risks
Masturbating: sex ed classis
Listening to loud music: is covered by electronic device manufacturers
Sex: again sex ed and various other PSA's on STD's

Yes, all the dangers of these activities are warned of or actively prevented (life guards in swimming pools).

It does not make me a hypocrite, as jsut because I recognise that the dangers of one activity are not being suitably warned does not mean I approve of that.

I haven't cared about smoking since it was banned indoors of public buildings, it doesn't affect me, but I genuinely care for all people who are afflicted as you should know as I have explained about people who suffer from diseases caused by smoking. I don't hate them for smoking.

"Any amount of saturated fat causes imediate and irrepairable damage to your body."

That's not a catchphrase, that's a lie. It is true that any amount of smoking damages to your body.

"Alcohol causes immediate damage to your liver! Man, this is easy."

No. Stop LYING. That is not true. You cannot just act like these3 PSAs just make shit up, they don't, they follow science. Your liver is only damaged when it has to process alcohol at a higher rate than it can manage or at a rate that is manageable for a short range of time but cannot be sustained. That's the science.

 

[RatRace123]

It's a very shocking video, and it sucks that the woman has to live life like that, but cases like hers are rare and the result of very heavy smoking. It's a scare tactic.

That said, I don't smoke cigarettes. Other people are free to if they wish, but as an asthmatic, it just seems like a very bad idea to me.

 

[RatRace123]

If people don't stop after a month, they won't stop after a year, ten years, nothing. That's how addiction works. They need a motivation from the outside.

A motivation like a video that shows what happens if they keep going, so that stopping now is more appealing than stopping by the time they can't even walk up a stairs without needing to stop and catch their breath.

I agree, but I think really shocking things like this video don't work solely because people are aware it's meant to be shocking. Rather than give people the honest facts and suggesting that they quit before they get in too deep, the PSAs just try to scare them and deal in hyperbole and hope that'll be enough.

 

[omega 616]

How old do you have to be to smoke these days? 16? 18? Anyway, by that kind of age if you don't know smoking has a high chance of causing you problems then you're a moron.

So everybody who smokes knows the facts about smoking and what it can lead to, so why do they need to be educated? It's like trying to convert Christians to Atheism.

Why not just start releasing adverts about the damages of drinking or stabbing plug sockets with a knife? Talk about trying to teach the bleeding obvious.

Um there are adverts about the dangers of drinking and also the dangers of electricity.

And yeah, it does take just a bit more than "you should know for yourself" about smoking. So many are just not getting the quiet restrained message, they don't want to hear about how their favourite habit is going to causes anything hugely bad to happen.

Well in my entire life, most of which was sat in front of a tv (up until a year ago anyway) and I have never seen an anti drinking or anti electric advert in my life!

I have seen plenty of "don't drink and drive" but no "drinking damages your liver etc" ones. Oh sorry, on alcohol adverts you always see, in size 5 font and usually in the bottom corner, "drink responsibly" on the very last screen of the advert ....

No, everybody knows inhaling smoke is bad for you, even as a little kid I would nag my mum to stop smoking. There should be no adverts to stop you smoking, there should be no "smoking kills" or pictures of fucked up lungs on packets ... if you know smoking is bad but continue to do it you will get no sympathy from me.

Same goes to alcoholics and drug users.

What country do you live in? In the UK I've seen enough.

Admittedly, there is not enough focus on how drinking itself kills but you can see why the focus is so much on drink driving as drink driving is the main way alcholog contributes to deaths.

"if you know smoking is bad but continue to do it you will get no sympathy from me."

this isn't about getting sympathy from people like you to smokers. This is about getting smokers to stop. Nicotine does a very good job of contradicting our natural aversions with a pleasure association with inhaling. We are all too much like Pavlov's dogs, easily conditioned with pain and pleasure. Nicotine is very addictive from how pleasurable and soothing it is, evocative demonstration of its destructive effects are needed as being quietly told just doesn't get past the addiction bias.

Everybody already knows!

How aren't you getting that point? Ask anybody, if they can speak (from the smallest of toddlers to the oldest of people) ask them if smoking negatively effects your health. I would be surprised if one person said it doesn't.

Forcing adverts down there throat about how much they are ruining themselves isn't going to effect them, more likely it is just going to annoy them ... like the anti piracy ads at the start of dvds.

Waste of time, money and patience.

 

[Treblaine]

How old do you have to be to smoke these days? 16? 18? Anyway, by that kind of age if you don't know smoking has a high chance of causing you problems then you're a moron.

So everybody who smokes knows the facts about smoking and what it can lead to, so why do they need to be educated? It's like trying to convert Christians to Atheism.

Why not just start releasing adverts about the damages of drinking or stabbing plug sockets with a knife? Talk about trying to teach the bleeding obvious.

Um there are adverts about the dangers of drinking and also the dangers of electricity.

And yeah, it does take just a bit more than "you should know for yourself" about smoking. So many are just not getting the quiet restrained message, they don't want to hear about how their favourite habit is going to causes anything hugely bad to happen.

Well in my entire life, most of which was sat in front of a tv (up until a year ago anyway) and I have never seen an anti drinking or anti electric advert in my life!

I have seen plenty of "don't drink and drive" but no "drinking damages your liver etc" ones. Oh sorry, on alcohol adverts you always see, in size 5 font and usually in the bottom corner, "drink responsibly" on the very last screen of the advert ....

No, everybody knows inhaling smoke is bad for you, even as a little kid I would nag my mum to stop smoking. There should be no adverts to stop you smoking, there should be no "smoking kills" or pictures of fucked up lungs on packets ... if you know smoking is bad but continue to do it you will get no sympathy from me.

Same goes to alcoholics and drug users.

What country do you live in? In the UK I've seen enough.

Admittedly, there is not enough focus on how drinking itself kills but you can see why the focus is so much on drink driving as drink driving is the main way alcholog contributes to deaths.

"if you know smoking is bad but continue to do it you will get no sympathy from me."

this isn't about getting sympathy from people like you to smokers. This is about getting smokers to stop. Nicotine does a very good job of contradicting our natural aversions with a pleasure association with inhaling. We are all too much like Pavlov's dogs, easily conditioned with pain and pleasure. Nicotine is very addictive from how pleasurable and soothing it is, evocative demonstration of its destructive effects are needed as being quietly told just doesn't get past the addiction bias.

Everybody already knows!

How aren't you getting that point? Ask anybody, if they can speak (from the smallest of toddlers to the oldest of people) ask them if smoking negatively effects your health. I would be surprised if one person said it doesn't.

Forcing adverts down there throat about how much they are ruining themselves isn't going to effect them, more likely it is just going to annoy them ... like the anti piracy ads at the start of dvds.

Waste of time, money and patience.

Yes, but so many don't know the extent of health risk. Further questioning they hold conceits like "oh, so I'll die at 70 years old rather than 100".

They do not realise what the risk they are exposed to. These adverts aren't "forced down your throat", they are money well spent in saving people's lives and health by informing them so they make the right decision.

These don't "shock". These don't exaggerate the diseases of smoking, they simply DO NOT sugar coat them.

 

[ShakyFiend]

Why don't we ban tobacco? Because impinging on personal freedom (where it doesn't harm others) is the prerogative of non-democratic governments.

If we were to survey major causes of heart disease i'm betting McDonalds would come up near the top, yet no one thinks we should ban big macs? If McDonalds start to lie or be deceptive in their presentation of their harmful products then its a problem.

As long as you are well aware of the effects of smoking then it should be entirely your choice whether or not you smoke, which is why awareness should be the goal.

You can't make choices about how other people live their lives, if they want to enjoy cigarettes (or whatever) and risk dying earlier then that's their choice.

 

[el derpenburgo]

Hate to be that guy posting in the middle of a surgical post deconstruction war, but here goes.

When I was a kid, my dad was a huge smoker and all the time I would bother him about it. Eventually he got guilted into quitting when I was about 7 and has stopped ever since. I used to look down on smokers and thought what the goddamn point was, since all you were doing was giving yourself cancer and ingesting trace amounts of heavy metals for basically nothing in return. In Australia we had these ads for a long time, and some were pretty brutal about it, some things could even be considered NSFW. Hell even our packs got the 'SMOKING IS BAD FOR YOU DON'T DO IT FOR GOD"S SAKE' treatment:

clicky [http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/british-american-tobacco-australia-flags-cigarette-packaging-fight/story-fn59niix-1226035118041]

Despite it all, it didn't stop me from picking up smoking. Like a lot of people have already said, I don't imagine it'll discourage me from smoking either. I had my own reasons for justifying it and the only thing that will stop me is if one day, I suddenly realise I need to stop, maybe for health reasons, maybe for personal reasons, whatever. The point is, my experience with these ads is that they kinda suck for prevention as well as motivation for quitting and the government should ease off. Like all habits, the decision to stop smoking is made mostly by society and not these cheap shock tactic ads.

 

[omega 616]

How old do you have to be to smoke these days? 16? 18? Anyway, by that kind of age if you don't know smoking has a high chance of causing you problems then you're a moron.

So everybody who smokes knows the facts about smoking and what it can lead to, so why do they need to be educated? It's like trying to convert Christians to Atheism.

Why not just start releasing adverts about the damages of drinking or stabbing plug sockets with a knife? Talk about trying to teach the bleeding obvious.

Um there are adverts about the dangers of drinking and also the dangers of electricity.

And yeah, it does take just a bit more than "you should know for yourself" about smoking. So many are just not getting the quiet restrained message, they don't want to hear about how their favourite habit is going to causes anything hugely bad to happen.

Well in my entire life, most of which was sat in front of a tv (up until a year ago anyway) and I have never seen an anti drinking or anti electric advert in my life!

I have seen plenty of "don't drink and drive" but no "drinking damages your liver etc" ones. Oh sorry, on alcohol adverts you always see, in size 5 font and usually in the bottom corner, "drink responsibly" on the very last screen of the advert ....

No, everybody knows inhaling smoke is bad for you, even as a little kid I would nag my mum to stop smoking. There should be no adverts to stop you smoking, there should be no "smoking kills" or pictures of fucked up lungs on packets ... if you know smoking is bad but continue to do it you will get no sympathy from me.

Same goes to alcoholics and drug users.

What country do you live in? In the UK I've seen enough.

Admittedly, there is not enough focus on how drinking itself kills but you can see why the focus is so much on drink driving as drink driving is the main way alcholog contributes to deaths.

"if you know smoking is bad but continue to do it you will get no sympathy from me."

this isn't about getting sympathy from people like you to smokers. This is about getting smokers to stop. Nicotine does a very good job of contradicting our natural aversions with a pleasure association with inhaling. We are all too much like Pavlov's dogs, easily conditioned with pain and pleasure. Nicotine is very addictive from how pleasurable and soothing it is, evocative demonstration of its destructive effects are needed as being quietly told just doesn't get past the addiction bias.

Everybody already knows!

How aren't you getting that point? Ask anybody, if they can speak (from the smallest of toddlers to the oldest of people) ask them if smoking negatively effects your health. I would be surprised if one person said it doesn't.

Forcing adverts down there throat about how much they are ruining themselves isn't going to effect them, more likely it is just going to annoy them ... like the anti piracy ads at the start of dvds.

Waste of time, money and patience.

Yes, but so many don't know the extent of health risk. Further questioning they hold conceits like "oh, so I'll die at 70 years old rather than 100".

They do not realise what the risk they are exposed to. These adverts aren't "forced down your throat", they are money well spent in saving people's lives and health by informing them so they make the right decision.

These don't "shock". These don't exaggerate the diseases of smoking, they simply DO NOT sugar coat them.

As long as people know there is a risk then it is a waste of money, even if all they know is "smoking significantly increases your chances of getting cancer" ... if they know that but still choose to smoke then they need no more information, constantly treating them like morons by force feeding them information is just being condescending.

It boils down to "do you know smoking is very dangerous"
"yeah, I know"
"but do you know smoking is very dangerous"
"yeah, I know"
"but do you know smoking is very dangerous"
"yeah, I know"

 

[Treblaine]

[snip]

This is ridiculous.

The Smoking PSA doesn't show any of her viscera either, no blood, just her actual condition as you'd know from interacting with her in public.

You are making up complete lies about driving. All of them.

I am not lying about the realities that you can safely drive by following all traffic laws.

There is no safe way to inhale smoke. Smokers are encouraged to take on Nicotine from non-smoking sources like patches, nicotine gum, nicotine-inhalers, etc. That is safely consuming nicotine if it is a short term to quit smoking. Yes, nicotine is toxic, but not nicotine patches are much less health damaging than any level of smoking.

Why would there be a PSA against kids playing if science says it is a net benefit to children for them to play? The rules of all sorts of games do so much to prevent crippling injury such as the armour in American Football and limits on concussions, etc.

They only warn against speeding as speeding is what both causes accidents and makes a non-fatal or non-disabling accident into one that is.

Why would it need to show someone with food stuck in their throat, everyone gets the message that choking cannot be ignored, no one dismisses someone choking on their food, yet millions of smokers ignore the risks of their habit.

The dangers of Deep Vein Thrombosis from prolonged sitting are not well understood but you ARE in fact warned about them on flights, advised to regularly (every hour) stand up and stretch your legs. Vast amounts of money are spent on specialised chairs and consultancy in reducing back pain from sitting and offices have been redesigned and staff briefed on such dangers. And I don't object to that, it's good that people are informed of such risks and how to avoid them. If they are not warned they should be.

The dangers of tinnitus from listening to loud music are far far lower than smoking, hence why electronics manufacturers have just been forced to give a warning, it is NOTHING like the public health risks of smoking or from unsafe driving.

Lifeguards have training to spot if someone is drowning, rescue them and resuscitate them. But safety doesn't end there, any public pool owner has a responsibility to keep the water in good condition to swim in and any private pool owner would be informed of their risk when they bought their own pool. Or they should be informed if they aren't.

The risk in gym again are no where near as great as dangerous driving and smoking as seen with how many people are disabled or dead from such things. The limited risk of breaking a bone dropping something is best managed by the purveyors of the establishment as the law requires them. See they can do this as they can safely use equipment and still run their business. Tobacco companies cannot as there is no other use for cigarettes other than smoking them which is not safe to do.

I don't know about the USA or elsewhere but in the UK there have been adverts on TV about sexually transmitted diseases for a while now, from HIV to Gonorrhoea it warns what are transmittable through unprotected sex.

I am not campaigning for these as these PSA warnings already are very prevalent in my country and I am in no position to campaign for what should be done in every country.

You NEED some saturated fats in a healthy balanced diet, there is a healthy level of consumption that doesn't contribute to any disease.

Addiction is far more complicated than one beer can lead to becoming an alcoholic. It is a slowly established pattern of dependence and excess. And it is scientifically accurate that there is a safe and healthy level of alcohol consumption. I don't actually particularly want anyone to drink but I know you will not convince them by lying to them that any amount of alcohol consumption is dangerous.