Shocking Anti-smoking ads

Some of you older marmots on here may remember the "spaghetti movies" that were a part of Drivers Ed in High School. They were actual footage of car accidents, and they were grim indeed. Don't know if they still use them or not?
New York State has decided to adapt the same tactic, with the intention of curbing cigarette use, via TV ads. There are three or four I guess, but I've only seen one. The core of the video on that one shows a human brain placed on a table, while the narative describes strokes, what they are, and the way smoking increases the risk of having one, ect. Then out comes the knife. The brain is sectioned lengthwise, and there, in very plain sight is the dark red blood clot from a stroke, a ruptured blood veselle(sp), roughly the size of a single peanut. That piece of the film is in a muted black&white, it serves to show the site of the rupture all the more clearly. Folks, I'm a long, long way from being squeamish, but even I winced during it!
Other commercials, featuring, as I understand it, sections of lungs, arterys ect. are equally graphic.
They may or may not be effective in motivating someone to quit smoking, but it's surely a dramatic and, I hope, effective means of delivering the message!

The most disturbing one I've remember was one that featured a woman named Debbie.

She breaths (and smokes) through a hole in her neck

During my freshman year at Chino Hills High, we had a person named Larry come to educate us about drugs for a PE class. He started smokeing when he was a teenager and also ended up with a hole in his neck (He knows Debbie by the way)

His vocal cords are also gone and to "speak" to us; he has to use a synthesizer

The "grossest" thing he showed us were human lungs that were preserved in Formaldyhide. One was a healthy lung and the second was a "black lung" from a smoker. :green:


My idea has always been; If they want people to quit smokeing, they should make it so one out of every 200 cigarettes contains an explosive and black ink or toner. Imagine a commercial where someone lights up in public and <BANG!> His face is black and everyone else is laughing at him.

"Surgeon General warning: Smokeing causes lung cancer, emphyzima, and blindness due to cigarettes exploding in your face" :naughty:

In Brazil, the "Surgeon General" warning refers to reduced sexual drive also. :laughing: I always thought that was funny.

My idea:

If you get caught crossing the border with more than 15 grams, it's hanging at dawn. Same with heroin where I am - try that and it's the gallows, baby. They just need to expand the scope to cover tobacco and derivatives.

It works. As someone who only has time to give a damn about the operational issues, we only have time for solutions - and this is a heck of a workable solution with minimal footprint.

Of course, smoking is bad, but there's an entertaining contrarian view that smoking, while bad for people, is good for the economy (in a politically incorrect way).

Phillip Morris funded a study for Czechoslovakia which showed that smoking doesn't hurt people's productivity (like alcohol) during their productive years and then kills them off before they get to collect much of their pensions - so they contribute but don't take much out of the economy. Therefore, it was good, expecially for socialistic systems. This sort of has a ring of truth to it, or is it just me?

Interestingly enough, I think both the pro- and anti-smoking sides didn't like this result and buried it. Probably why I like it.

It's no secret that Medicare and Social Security are going to present some tough decisions in the future. People are living longer, and medical expenses are going to increase.

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3982&sequence=0

No politician has the political fortitude to state the obvious: we're going to have to increase taxes and/or decrease benefits.

So I propose a new option. The federal government should start handing out free booze and cigarettes to everybody age 35 and older, immediately. Recipients agree never to file suit. The American people get free beer and smokes, the federal government is saved from the crushing burden of entitlements due to reduced lifespans, and American businesses get a shot in the arm. Everybody wins!

Naturally, I am kidding.

Canada has tried one way of reducing smoking by placing explicit warnings and pictures on 50-60% of each pack.

Graphic Cigarette Warnings Effective:

OTTAWA, Canada (CNN) -- Graphic warning labels on cigarette packages in Canada have been effective in discouraging smoking, according to a study by the Canadian Cancer Society.

Fifty-eight percent of smokers interviewed in the study said full-color pictures of how cancer affects the mouth, lungs, heart and brain had made them think more about the health effects of smoking.

The warnings were so effective that 44 percent of the smokers polled said the new warnings increased their motivation to quit smoking. And 38 percent of smokers who attempted to quit in 2001 said the new warnings were a factor in motivating them to try to quit.

Click to expand...

Some scans of Canada's warings

Brazil's Warnings

Thailand's Warnings

I have also read that in Canada, slide-on covers are available to cover the graphic warnings.

Problem, meet solution, meet problem, meet solution...

-Bill

Intellectually I think most of us know that smoking is not good for you. How bad for you it is though is something that we can fool ourselves about for any number of reasons. They are resorting to such scare tactics because humans are so good at creating cognitive dissonance

10 years ago nearly all of my close friends smoked. Today, not a single one of those people still does. As of about 2 or 3 years ago the last one quit for good and as far as I know hasn't backslid much.

So those that want to and are able are really cleaning up their act. Those that dont want to, well, I'm afraid that no amount of nasty pictures or information will make them do anything different.

I am going to suggest to the local school system a "scared straight" program where students take a field trip to the local VA hospital. You dont even have to go in, just have a chat with the guy in the wheelchair sitting out front who is smoking through his larengectomy tube and is in the wheelchair because he had a foot amputated due to COPD.

drinking is bad for ya to.i wish they would make drinking adds to scare folks.just ask any leo.officer about calls they had while the persons involved was drinking.far as cigeretes my mom died of lung cancer.aint no way im going to smoke

good for you, Raggie.

The antismoking campaigns have been working even before these graphic commercials. Only something like 18% of adults still smoke compared to probably 75% 40 years ago. I'm guessing these commercials are going after that hard core 18%. It's funny how most of the new antismoking laws in NYC were strongly opposed by a very vocal minority when they were first put into effect yet now that we see their positive effects they have widespread support. It's now illegal to smoke here not only in workplaces, but also in bars and clubs. There is growing support to ban smoking in front of public buildings as well since this is where smokers forced outside usually congregate. My guess is by the time everything is said and done the only places you'll be able to smoke legally will by your home and your car. Sure, the smokers complain that they're increasingly being treated like lepers, but the fact is that second-hand smoke is almost as bad for you as smoking yourself. IMHO smokers have no right to inflict innocent bystanders with their habit, which is the impetus behind these laws. Now if we could only start doing something about auto exhaust (opps, sorry wrong thread ).

I also agree with Hookd_On_Photons that people living longer from not smoking is going to force us to make some hard decisions regarding Social Security. Either we'll have to raise the retirement age substantially, reduce benefits, or switch the system entirely over to private accounts.

I'll tell ya what, I've NEVER been a tobacco user(I'm 52), but the sight of that blood clot in the brain has indeed motivated me to be considerably more diligent about taking my blood pressure medicine and daily aspirin!

Tom_Dunn said:

I'll tell ya what, I've NEVER been a tobacco user(I'm 52), but the sight of that blood clot in the brain has indeed motivated me to be considerably more diligent about taking my blood pressure medicine and daily aspirin!

Click to expand...

eek that reminds me to take my bp meds i always forget em.takeing em now

James S said:

I am going to suggest to the local school system a "scared straight" program where students take a field trip to the local VA hospital. You dont even have to go in, just have a chat with the guy in the wheelchair sitting out front who is smoking through his larengectomy tube and is in the wheelchair because he had a foot amputated due to COPD.

Click to expand...

You anti-tobacco Nazis drive me crazy! Always exaggerating and using scare tactics to frighten the kids!

That's just an urban legend, right?

I've seen those anti-smoking ads with that douchebag Debbie, who huffs her "siggerets" through her tracheostomy tube...those Truth adholes are why cigerettes cost $5.00 to $7.00 a pack these days. :shakehead: :shakehead:

Yes and no...

Part of the settlement of that humongous lawsuit was that the tobacco companies would fund anti-smoking ad campaigns. That helps to insulate them from future lawsuits.

Taxes might constitute a large chunk of what you pay for smokes, too.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/12/pf/taxes/cigarette_excise/?section=money_pf

If adults want to smoke, why not just let them do it? It's not like it's a secret that tobacco is detrimental to your health.

What's next, are we going to tax junk food too?

If I were smarter, I'd try to organize a class action lawsuit against the junk food manufacturers, based upon the same criteria used to sue "Big Tobacco".

The cost of treating obesity-related illnesses (diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, etc.) is billions of dollars a year, and obesity-related conditions kill millions of Americans a year. Public health systems are being overwhelmed by these costs, so it's only right that the government sue the crap out of junk food manufacturers to recoup their losses.

The junk food manufacturers know their product is deadly. Offering "low-tar" cigarettes is a tacit admission that the junk in tobacco is bad for you. So what about all those "low-fat", "low-carb", and "low-sugar" junk food offerings?

Not only do they know the stuff they're selling is deadly, they know it's addictive! "Bet you can't eat just one!" (Ha!)

And they deliberately market the vile stuff to the children! Joe Camel's got nothin' on Chester Cheetah, Ronald McDonald, and the Kool-Aid Man!

You know, I don't think it would be possible that someone else eating too much junk food would potentially affect my health. It's cute how a lot of smokers like to live in a world of denial that there is no such thing as secondhand smoke or that it does no harm to non-smokers.

That's lovely...

JM-99

Oh gosh, maybe somebody can find the link but I thought they did. Not a class action suit but didn't a person recently sue one of the junk food restaurants (I think it was McDonalds but not sure) claiming their food led to her bad health?

Hookd_On_Photons said:

If I were smarter, I'd try to organize a class action lawsuit against the junk food manufacturers, based upon the same criteria used to sue "Big Tobacco".

The cost of treating obesity-related illnesses (diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, etc.) is billions of dollars a year, and obesity-related conditions kill millions of Americans a year. Public health systems are being overwhelmed by these costs, so it's only right that the government sue the crap out of junk food manufacturers to recoup their losses.

The junk food manufacturers know their product is deadly. Offering "low-tar" cigarettes is a tacit admission that the junk in tobacco is bad for you. So what about all those "low-fat", "low-carb", and "low-sugar" junk food offerings?

Not only do they know the stuff they're selling is deadly, they know it's addictive! "Bet you can't eat just one!" (Ha!)

And they deliberately market the vile stuff to the children! Joe Camel's got nothin' on Chester Cheetah, Ronald McDonald, and the Kool-Aid Man!

Click to expand...

You can't draw an exact parallel between obesity and smoking. For one thing, a person being obese doesn't directly affect the health of those around them, other than possibly their financial health from the taxes used to finance the Medicaid costs of obesity-related illnesses. Second, the health effects of cigarettes are well documented and entirely eliminated by not smoking, both to the smoker and those around them.

On the other hand, the causes of obesity are many. The availability of junk food is but a small part of the equation. There are many other factors at work. Jobs are mostly less physical than they used to be. Many of the pastimes people engage in now are more sedentary than those people engaged in years ago. I think a very important factor is the suburbanization of America. In many places where people live it is simply not practical to run your errands by walking or biking. The car gives door to door service at the expense of a lot of exercise which people used to get just living their lives. They no longer run up or down flights of stairs to catch subway trains, or walk a good number of blocks from train stations to wherever they're going, or expend energy carrying groceries several blocks home and up a few flights of stairs.

In a nutshell, in many places obesity exists because life is simply too convenient and too mechanized. The junk food only plays a small part. You can tax or even ban such foods, and people will still be overweight unless there is a major change in the way we live.

JTR, you bring up very valid points. Were you born in 1962? I was born one year later and although not real old I already see a vast difference between my childhood and today's childhood. We had no pcs or video games (well crude versions of both started to show up by my late teens) and my particular house did not have cable tv. It was just so natural to go outside and run around to provide entertainment. We had McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts and plenty of sweets and junk food available at the local store so it was there but we were just so active, I saw far less childhood obesity then what I see today.