New GRAPHIC warning labels on cigarette packs

[Lachrymose]

Reminds me of this:

(Censored Sopranos - Mad Tv)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFHzc5oncDQ

[Andara Bledin]

Are you serious? Wha'd they do, just spool the bitch from the reel directly into a garbage can?

It was their Next Movie... The scene with Edie McClurg was untouched, but when they were carrying around that bag of tie sticks, it got changed to diamond chips.

^-.-^

[fireheart17]

The thing that bothers me is that it has to go on ads as well. Cigarette ads are pretty well all over the place. Why should a non-smoker have to look at pictures of corpses and such?

We already have the somewhat graphic ads and packaging down in Australia. Here are the posters (which go on the back of cigarette packs anyway)

The current TV ads consist of two forms:

1) A woman being told she has terminal lung cancer and working out how to tell the kiddies
2) A man coughing around repeatedly and each time he coughs up blood.

There may be another one but I'm not sure.

A few years back there was one of a woman with mouth cancer being shown on TV (talking about smoking). That got TONS of complaints and was eventually pulled. The ones before that I can remember were:

-Bubblewrap lungs with cigarettes poking their way through the bubbles.
-Various organs from dead people who smoked, things such as arteries, lungs and brains. They'd show the tar, the fatty deposits or the bleed from the brain.

Can't remember the rest

But as far as I'm aware, most places no longer sell cigarette covers. Chances are, if they make the law, they'll also ban the sale of cigarette covers and whatnot.

Funnily enough, as far as Australian law goes, cigarettes are required to have the warning label on the front (10% of the total front) and back (90%) but cigar packs are only required to have them on the back.

[Bright Star]

A while back they thought."Oh wow, if we raise the prices really high then people will stop smoking!". Did it make anyone stop smoking? NOPE!! Will putting ugly pictures on the packaging going to be any more effective? NOPE!!
Just wait...somebody somewhere will invent something you can slip over the packaging to hide the ugly pictures.

[Boozy]

Drinking kills more people a night than smoking manages in an entire year, but it's considered socially acceptable, so they just kind of sweep all of that under the rug.

Whoa. That's a bold claim.

Citation?

[telecom_goddess]

Whoa. That's a bold claim.

Citation?

Drunk driving is probably the main culprit I would think. you can smoke and drive and survive just fine.

[Andara Bledin]

Drunk driving is probably the main culprit I would think. you can smoke and drive and survive just fine.

Mostly this. Actually, It's possible that this has changed as my statement was based on data from 20 years ago, and drunk driving deaths are a third of what they were. As it stands now, over 10,000 people are killed annually due to drunk driving, and about half of those were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Cigarette deaths, on the other hand, are notably indirect. Very few people actually die directly from smoking. Due to the nature of the issue, I don't trust data which tends to suggest that every smoker who dies died because they smoked. Plus, there are environmental factors that get ignored as well. And how many deaths of people who both smoked and drank are ever attributed to their drinking when it's not due to something like a DUI accident or, say, cirrhosis of the liver?

That said, starting up smoking is still not that great an idea, but I'm not going to stop someone else from doing it and I still think this initiative is completely asinine.

^-.-^

[AdminAssistant]

you can smoke and drive and survive just fine.

I would think that smoking and driving would fall under the same 'distracted driving' laws that ban texting and driving.

[Andara Bledin]

I would think that smoking and driving would fall under the same 'distracted driving' laws that ban texting and driving.

Not even remotely. Smoking would take about the same amount of attention as, say, drinking a can of soda. All of the motions are routine and can be performed by muscle memory, meaning that it takes very little attention.

Both, however, would run afoul of laws that require that both hands be on the wheel unless it is necessary that one is not, such as when shifting a manual transmission.

Texting and talking on the phone require complex cogitation that severely impairs a person's ability to concentrate on their driving. Long distance conversations involve thought processes that aren't necessary with in-person conversations, which is why they are so much worse than just talking with a passenger.

^-.-^

[Ginger Tea]

And let's not forget that (although it does happen) the term drink driving normally means driving after drinking, no one has ever got into a car after smoking a pack and had their vision or judgement impaired.

I once got called by captain dickhead and then found out he was driving at the time, even with a hands free kit it wasn't the best of ideas for him as he seemed his usual dithering self and perhaps should keep those few brain cells active on one specific task, that task driving and not boring me with indecisons and boring clap trap, but me being me, I ended up being a helpful virtual back seat driver.
I think I ended the call with OHMYGODWEREGONNADIE!!!, but I think I was dropping the odd "Watch out for that deer!" comment, truth be told I did wan't him to have a nasty accident, preferably involving no one else, but sadly it never was to be.

[telecom_goddess]

I don't trust data which tends to suggest that every smoker who dies died because they smoked. Plus, there are environmental factors that get ignored as well.

^-.-^

case in point....musician Warren Zevon, who died a few years back of lung cancer. Yes he smoked. But he didn't get his lung cancer from that, he had mesothelioma which you get from asbestos exposure, the environmental factor in other words. Yet every news story about him stated "He died from lung cancer and was a smoker". It implied he died from smoking and he did NOT.

[Boozy]

There's no way of knowing if a smoker who gets lung cancer wouldn't have gotten lung cancer anyway. But there's no question that smoking greatly increases your risk.

Sometimes there's no way of knowing if a drunk driver wouldn't have gotten into an accident if they'd been sober, either. But driving drunk is still
stupid and dangerous.

The bottom line is that smoking kills more people than alcohol. By far.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Um... we've had those nasty pics on cigarette packets for quite some time over here. Does it stop people smoking? Do bears use public conveniences?

[Gravekeeper]

They're really working the wrong angle on this. Shock value isn't going to work on a smoker. It might ward off a would be smoker, but that's about it. Older smokers are not going to break their habits any time soon and not over a shocking picture. Gotta get the young, stupid people and break the cycle. Which means you need to go after two angles: Virility and vanity. Dicks and looks.

They need to work up that erectile dysfunction angle. Every box should just have a sad, wilted piece of celery on it being absently batted by a bored cat. Or just have a picture of a grizzled old truck stop waitress smoking and the caption "These will make you look like your mom by the time your 20.".

Seriously though, a friend of mine is a hardcore smoker and holy shit have they made her face age rough over the last 10 years. We're the same age, but she looks at least 15 years older than me. Yet I never see that in a PSA. -.-

[Ginger Tea]

Seriously though, a friend of mine is a hardcore smoker and holy shit have they made her face age rough over the last 10 years. We're the same age, but she looks at least 15 years older than me. Yet I never see that in a PSA. -.-

Woman at work, I was sure she was 10-20 years older than me and her 20ish sister could have been one of those soap opera plot devices where she is realy the daughter, last year or so the subject of chinese new year came up (funnily enough at the time of the new year) and she said she was the same sign as me, so that put her at 12 years older, turns out no, same year, the vodka and smokes might have had something to do with that.
Myself I don't see much change from my 20's now in my mid/late 30's