Poll: Dying for a smoke?

[PersianLlama]

Let's say every day someone on the Escapist put up a thread saying how your favourite game is the worst game ever; and you're not allowed to respond or report them. Could you last two weeks?

We get that every 3 or 4 hours.

Yeah, I could last forever with that.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

I am on a mission to bring back pipe smoking, it's cheaper, tastier and a lot more fun. There is an artform to packing it properly and keeping it alight that you don't really get with straights or rollies.

Not to mention you look so much more distinguished old boy...

 

[SteinFaust]

Well, I'm not the one who's putting sticks filled with rat poison, preservatives for dead bodies [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde], radioactive elements [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium] and a substance whose primary function over the years has been to make things explode [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate] into my mouth and inhaling. I'm completely in favour of this policy, and I would seek to ban the cigarette altogether permanently.

no damn way. governments everywhere get too fat off of the tarriffs on smokes.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Well, I'm not the one who's putting sticks filled with rat poison, preservatives for dead bodies [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde], radioactive elements [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium] and a substance whose primary function over the years has been to make things explode [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate] into my mouth and inhaling. I'm completely in favour of this policy, and I would seek to ban the cigarette altogether permanently.

Then how would you pay for the £22 million drop in Government spending?

By the way, you really want me to get out all the chemicals you've ingested through Fast Food, Alcohol, Headache tablets, Bananas, Chillis, Exhaust Fumes, Dentist's Gas, Mothballs, Human Waste, Kissing etc.?

 

[Simski]

I'm a non-smoker, and that picture made me lol.

 

[Maet]

A gross out image now counts as a warning label? That is indeed to far.

Smoking, like premarital sex or robbing a bank, is a personal choice. As long as the consumer is informed and aware of the risks of the dangers and possibilities, then it's entirely up to them. I suppose I maintain Naylor's position in "Thank You For Smoking."

The image is not only overboard, but useless. It does not warn or inform, it's a just a cheap scare. Cars don't come in a box littered with images of mangled car wrecks and toasters don't come in a box with an electrocuted person holding a fork near it. This campaign is incredibly stupid.

 

[Xhumed]

I've been putting up with these sorts of images on cigarette packets since I moved to Oz in February. The worst ones show a gangrenous foot, a mouth riddled with cancer and an artery full of cottage cheese cholesterol. It doesn't make me want to quit. I started off as a very occasional smoker, until my last year of uni, when one hugely stressful event tipped me over the edge. I smoke between 5 and 15 a day, depending on a)what sort of day I'm having b)if I'm working c)if I'm out.
It's like road safety ads- they just keep making them more graphic, more horrific, and they show them at any time of day.

 

[Shirahime]

I come in contact with Formaldehyde quite frequently and it never did me any harm. Or my father for that fact and he uses it more than I do.

Burns a bit though. And it stinks.

I'm willing to bet that most smokers who read the "ingredients" list on the side of smokes don't know what they are or even care really.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Then how would you pay for the £22 million drop in Government spending?

Well, I'm reckoning that getting rid of the cigarette will pay at least half its worth back by lessening hospital cases related to it/

You'd be sadly wrong.
Revenue from Cigarettes Yearly that goes to the NHS: £30 million
Amount spent on smoking related diseases : £8 million

It's not a perfect solution, but for the chance to destroy the cigarette (and in the progress, get those damned children who ask for them out of the shop), I'd be willing to take the risk.

But remember, most politicians are still smoking.

And yes, before anybody asks, I would be in favour of having pictures of grossly obese people on fast food as well.

I'm glad you stick to your guns, but isn't there enough 'terror' advertising already? Given that people are already frightened to go out to the shops? Surely Orwell has already covered this as a way to keep the proles in their house, doing what the Government tells them.

Question: When the announcer comes on at the start of your programme and says "Viewer Discretion is advised : The following programme contains scenes of mild nudity and graphic violence.", do you think "Cool!"?

And, relating to games, I can see a lot worse now on my cigarette packet than even Clive Barker's Jericho will show me; and so can all the little kids queuing up to buy their sweeties.

 

[Saskwach]

Non-smoker who hates the sanctimony in the anti-smoking lobby. There are powerful groups who don't just want to inform people but would dearly love to ban smoking; they're simply trying a Trotskyist gradual revolution to achieve it. First it's simple: people might smoke less if we tax it, so we will. Non-smokers in bars don't want to suck in poisonous fumes so we'll ban smoking in pubs. Fine. Oh, but wait, what about places of work? Ban smoking there, too. Smokers will smoke outside now, like pariahs. But we can't make it that easy for them: smokers now have to be X metres away from the building, too. Soon they'll ban parents from smoking in or near their house, ban smoking in cars (unless they already have?), etc. So you can't smoke at home, you can't smoke on the way to, or coming back from, work, you can't smoke with your friends over a few beers, and you have to take an elevator ride and a hike to smoke at work. Each of these steps makes perfect logical sense from the last, and eventually the perfectly logical next step will be to ban it completely.

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

this has been on the ciggarettes in my country for about a year now

 

[DannyDamage]

Do you think politicians would like crime scene and autopsy photos of dead public figures like JFK, Luther King and Princess (where's your smile?) Diana plastered all over the place? Seeing as there are dangers in being a politician too. See, I'm jumping on THEIR bandwagon now.

"Warning: Politics Kills - Especially When You're A Money Hungry Lying Bastard"

 

[The Iron Ninja]

this has been on the ciggarettes in my country for about a year now

It has? I didn't notice (But I don't smoke)

If this works as a deterent against minors smoking then I'm all for it. But it seems a bit over the top for anyone else.

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

I would only smoke cigars. Fine blue smoke to blow in people faces

 

[falcontwin]

The thing you might have not realized is that no other category of non-essential consumable can compare to the public health burdens imposed by tobacco products.

.

Alcohol Kills/is responsible for injuring/fucks over the lives more people either directly or indirectly every year than smoking does.

But we can't ban alcohol because having a bottle of wine or 2/3 with dinner each night is in no way alcoholism.

 

[DannyDamage]

I love bad arguments like these.

Dude, it wasn't meant to be a legit argument. It was a hypothetical statement

On a serious note though, it's an exercise known as 'putting the shoe on the other foot'. Surely you've heard of it and used it to judge things in life. Rather than just passing judgement from the same angle every time.

 

[DannyDamage]

You're forgetting that the concept of regular moderation exists for alcohol usage.

For cigarettes, such a thing doesn't exist due to its inherent chemical makeup.

You mean the fact that booze is advertised EVERYWHERE, all day every day? TV, radio, magazines, buses, even football games.................very healthy.

And their counter measure for all their advertising efforts are useful; the very slightest "drink responsibly" line for a moment on the adverts.

Yeah that balances it out, totally :s

Edit: A few killings yes. But how many people with throat cancer will leave their illness unlooked at for so long it grows to the size of the guy's on the cig packet pictures? Not many me thinks.

 

[DannyDamage]

You're forgetting that the concept of regular moderation exists for alcohol usage.

For cigarettes, such a thing doesn't exist due to its inherent chemical makeup.

You mean the fact that booze is advertised EVERYWHERE, all day every day? TV, radio, magazines, buses, even football games.................very healthy.

And their counter measure for all their advertising efforts are useful; the very slightest "drink responsibly" line for a moment on the adverts.

Yeah that balances it out, totally :s

...Err, no, that's not what I mean at all.

I'm not even sure how you came to that conclusion from my post.

Because there is no other means of moderation when it comes to drinking, not anymore.

They changed pub hours from 7pm-11pm to stop binge drinking but now people stay up from 7pm till whenever they want, binge drinking. And when most bars have stupidly cheap deals like £1 per drink, who's going to stop people from over indulging and staying there till 4am or so.

 

[falcontwin]

7pm till 11pm? Here in Australia the pub hours are 9AM till 5AM so you can write yourself off 20 hours a day and if you want to get drunk outside these hours you need to go to a 24 hour bottleshop. But you can't smoke in your own car if you have a passenger under 18 so thats the government looking out for us.

 

[DannyDamage]

7pm till 11pm? Here in Australia the pub hours are 9AM till 5AM so you can write yourself off 20 hours a day and if you want to get drunk outside these hours you need to go to a 24 hour bottleshop. But you can't smoke in your own car if you have a passenger under 18 so thats the government looking out for us.

Yeah, no limited bar times now. 24 hour booze country wide. Joy.

We have some pretty silly smoking laws in your own vehicle too. :S