New Anti-Smoking Ads

[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.

 

[Vivi22]

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.

You completely missed the point. Banning it won't make it less available. There's already a black market for cigarettes in many places where they're heavily taxed. The only thing banning them would do is push it completely into the black market and insure that every single person who smokes now and will smoke later is a criminal. But there will be no shortage of people willing to smuggle cigarettes into the country and sell them on the streets, just as there is no shortage of drugs in developed countries, and plenty of people were still getting wasted during prohibition.

Banning it wouldn't do a single thing except make sure all of the profit and the customers go to criminals. And this isn't simply a matter of opinion. This is what happens every single time something a large number of people want to use is banned.

The only way you're going to get rid of smoking is through education of people before they start, and by stigmatizing the act. A legal ban would cause more problems without solving the one it was instituted to solve.

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

anti smoking campaigns and ads make me want to smoke.

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

WHERE ARE THE "i ate loads of burgers and now i cant walk" AD'S??????

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

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...

can we be buddies?

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I've had people try to tell me smoking is dangerous.

Dangerous, y'all? Really? I'd give you the point that it's unhealthy...but dangerous? Not in the grand scheme of things. If you wanna see smoking get dangerous, try hooking your mouth up to a running engine's exhaust pipe. Now that's dangerous, my friend. Not to mention slightly retarded. As someone else has pointed out, drunk driving's a bit dangerous, too. Also retarded, but happens to be more dangerous than smoking. You wanna know what I find to be even more dangerous than that?

Putting nuclear reactors near goddamn fault lines in a place aptly named the "Ring of Fire".

I wonder if many people have discovered vaporizing yet. Much less dangerous than smoking, and it works with tobacco. FYI: on this nice little topic of drug use - I want to make it PERFECTLY CLEAR that I'm not for or against it in any shape or fashion; do whatcha want. That, and this topic been talked about before, so I'm just going to leave this lil' message from the past here...

Spoiler: Enjoy and pay special attention at the three and a half minute mark

 

[Colour Scientist]

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.

So, even though in countries, like the UK and Ireland, where the tax made on cigarettes more than covers the medical burden of smokers on the public health system, they should still have to pay when others don't?
That makes total sense.

 

[Leadfinger]

I think this kind of ad is effective. Cigarette companies spend millions of dollars to make their product look cool and sexy. An ad like this attacks that image in a powerful way.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

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.)

You know that they already do this don't you? The revenue form taxes generated by the sale of tobacco [http://www.the-tma.org.uk/tma-publications-research/facts-figures/tax-revenue-from-tobacco/] far exceed the cost of treatment on the NHS [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8086142.stm]. People always think that it's only the NI that goes into running the NHS but in fact they get some of the tax duty too. So all in all your average smoker is contributing more to the NHS than a non smoker.

OT
Shock tactics don't work in the long run. Sure they might stop you sparking up for a few hours or a day but the effect soon wares off. In that effect they are useless.

However they are far more effective to stop people from starting in the first place. This is where the main focus should be. Treat the cause and not the symptoms.

Personally I think they should just ban cigarettes and stop selling them...problem solved. This is coming from a smoker too.

 

[Namehere]

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.

Man this is rich. Let me guess. Let's play word association!

DRM ? waa waaa entitled!
Bad business practices ? waa waaa ENTITLED!
Out right false advertising ? waa waaa ENTITLED!
A dumb opinion that could cost lives and do nothing to improve the general quality of life for others ? I'm entitled. LMAO

You are rich. That's some fertile soil you got there man. And I love the fact that while you menace the health and welfare of countrymen, because your entitled, you won't even justify it beyond that. Someone says, the taxes are crippling, they're too entitled. Some one says, I deserve the EI I've paid in to with the understanding that this is how it functions, WAY too entitled. But you know, deciding that a segment of the population no longer deserves healthcare... That's just an opinion man, I'm entitled.

What was that old line about treason? He who shouts it the loudest or something... I wonder if that applies to entitlement as well? Huh. Never would have guessed.

By the way, I'm thrilled you mentioned the US system. I was basing my suggestion that you do the honourable thing off of that system. After all while you aren't a smoker any more the long term illnesses one contracts from smoking can still spring up on you at any moment over the next thirty some odd years. If any of those were to appear and you had US insurance, you would be SOL. The irony being, they pay more for a system that does less...

My god, the great conservative debate, are we trying to save money or simply pump it out rapidly just where we want it. SHH! SH... They'll accuse you of wealth redistribution. Like conservatives do to everyone else who suggests this whole thing is going tits up and something new needs to be done here.

Sure your entitled to your opinion. Congratulations. You know what else your entitled to? Using your brain. Human thought is a function you come with. Why don't you exorcise that entitlement, then come back here with a justification beyond; Cause I said so! Which is what your response of: I'm entitled to my opinion, basically was.

Thanks for playing Trolla'mania!

 

[Lionsfan]

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.

Weather stuff. In the Midwest we have about 6 months of good weather then you can't really grow anything

 

[F4LL3N]

You completely missed the point. Banning it won't make it less available. There's already a black market for cigarettes in many places where they're heavily taxed. The only thing banning them would do is push it completely into the black market and insure that every single person who smokes now and will smoke later is a criminal. But there will be no shortage of people willing to smuggle cigarettes into the country and sell them on the streets, just as there is no shortage of drugs in developed countries, and plenty of people were still getting wasted during prohibition.

Banning it wouldn't do a single thing except make sure all of the profit and the customers go to criminals. And this isn't simply a matter of opinion. This is what happens every single time something a large number of people want to use is banned.

The only way you're going to get rid of smoking is through education of people before they start, and by stigmatizing the act. A legal ban would cause more problems without solving the one it was instituted to solve.

I disagree. If 70% of Australian smokers genuinely want to quit, then they are unlikely to go to a street dealer. Some might, but I think most would just give up as finding someone who sells it will be quite inconvinient. And I'm not talking about sending people to jail as if smoking is as bad as crack. Just banning it for people's own good, and perhaps confiscating/fining for anyone possessing distribution amounts.

I agree you need education, and it's best to stop it before people start. But I still think if you make it hard to acquire, a lot of people will quit. It only takes a few weeks to get over the habit and chemical addiction.

Alternatively, you could just raise the price to ridicious amounts and most people will simply give up.

 

[flarty]

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.)

You know that they already do this don't you? The revenue form taxes generated by the sale of tobacco [http://www.the-tma.org.uk/tma-publications-research/facts-figures/tax-revenue-from-tobacco/] far exceed the cost of treatment on the NHS [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8086142.stm]. People always think that it's only the NI that goes into running the NHS but in fact they get some of the tax duty too. So all in all your average smoker is contributing more to the NHS than a non smoker.

OT
Shock tactics don't work in the long run. Sure they might stop you sparking up for a few hours or a day but the effect soon wares off. In that effect they are useless.

However they are far more effective to stop people from starting in the first place. This is where the main focus should be. Treat the cause and not the symptoms.

Personally I think they should just ban cigarettes and stop selling them...problem solved. This is coming from a smoker too.

Yes while this is true, My line of thinking comes from diabetes potentially bankrupting the NHS within a generation. Whilst diabetes can be hereditary, the massive influx is coming from poor diet, and it is unfair for one to hold the opinion that one group of people should have to provide private medical care due to leading an unhealthy lifestyle whilst another group doesnt. Also to say its ok for people to smoke and be treated on the nhs just so the government can collect a couple of billion in tax revenue at the exspense of peoples health is a poor argument in my opinion anyway.

Man this is rich. Let me guess. Let's play word association!

DRM ? waa waaa entitled!
Bad business practices ? waa waaa ENTITLED!
Out right false advertising ? waa waaa ENTITLED!
A dumb opinion that could cost lives and do nothing to improve the general quality of life for others ? I'm entitled. LMAO

You are rich. That's some fertile soil you got there man. And I love the fact that while you menace the health and welfare of countrymen, because your entitled, you won't even justify it beyond that. Someone says, the taxes are crippling, they're too entitled. Some one says, I deserve the EI I've paid in to with the understanding that this is how it functions, WAY too entitled. But you know, deciding that a segment of the population no longer deserves healthcare... That's just an opinion man, I'm entitled.

What was that old line about treason? He who shouts it the loudest or something... I wonder if that applies to entitlement as well? Huh. Never would have guessed.

By the way, I'm thrilled you mentioned the US system. I was basing my suggestion that you do the honourable thing off of that system. After all while you aren't a smoker any more the long term illnesses one contracts from smoking can still spring up on you at any moment over the next thirty some odd years. If any of those were to appear and you had US insurance, you would be SOL. The irony being, they pay more for a system that does less...

My god, the great conservative debate, are we trying to save money or simply pump it out rapidly just where we want it. SHH! SH... They'll accuse you of wealth redistribution. Like conservatives do to everyone else who suggests this whole thing is going tits up and something new needs to be done here.

Sure your entitled to your opinion. Congratulations. You know what else your entitled to? Using your brain. Human thought is a function you come with. Why don't you exorcise that entitlement, then come back here with a justification beyond; Cause I said so! Which is what your response of: I'm entitled to my opinion, basically was.

Thanks for playing Trolla'mania!

and you sir shout the loudest by far.