1/12: Canadian cigarette warnings

[gmarceau]

Originally posted by datalas
I believe one of the main reasons why smoking is not illigal is the matter of Tax.

Sorry to break the news to you, but this logic doesn't work in Canada. Remember, in Canada, we all share the same gouvernmental medical insurance. So for every smoker that quits, and every tennager that doesn't start, hundred of thousands dollard are saved by the gouvernment in future medical services.

This justifies alot of the babysitting our gouvernement does on us. For instance : Some of us would like to motorbike without a helmet, but the rest would rather not pay the millions for all the resulting head trauma treatments. Thus helmets are mendatory in Canada.


I would like to point out the effect of those ads are greter than can be mesured in a pool. Remember, when pooled, practicaly nobody ever admit advertisement as an effect on their shoping decisions, but advertisers know better.

The fact is, those ads brought the issue out on the street. For every five discussion about who in the office got the latest ad first, there is one that turns about who will quit next, or about who really hate second hand smoke but is too shy to say so. It got people talking. It got the idea into people's head that there is a social issue at play, and that we should talk about it.

[tw]

Would you permit someone to urinate in the same room that people are eating? And yet we permit cigarette addicts to do the same thing in restaurants. Do you agree or disagree with the first sentence? Why? In most cases the response will be based on emotion - not facts.

Emotion is why people start smoking. We have all known since the 60s that smoking destroys lungs. Smoking ages people quickly. Smokers have body odor - so why also waste money on deodorant. Smokers make non-smokers smell dirty. Smokers have lower intelligence levels because of the chemical addiction process. Smokers are addicts similar to crack addicts.

So why then does he smoke? Why did he start in the first place? Emotion.

We know that when smokers look cool, then others take up the addiction. It is why the industry so actively encouraged actors to smoke in movies. Emotion is a primary reason for smoking. Emotion must also be used to discourage the addiction.

That is not to say that 100% would be disuaded from smoking. It does not matter that those pictures don't affect you. But it does matter that those pictures cause more people to avoid the addiction. You cannot judge those pictures personally. They must be judged statistically.

Why were Joe Camel and the Marlboro man so effective at their trade? Because kids today are so emotional - so less logical - than they would claim. Under 21s can be manipulated like lemmings. It is why they make such good soldiers and terrorists.

Examples are everywhere. Shelves in a grocery store. If Scope and Listerene do nothing productive, then why is so much sold on store shelves? If the solution to good health is proper ratios of nutrition, then why are vitamin and supplement tablets solds in doses far in excess of daily requirements? In the case of Vitamin C, why is it sold in doses known to create genetic damage? Why all the hype and sales of St John's Wort - which does not live up to its wild claims.

Emotion sells.

If you have 90+% of a toothpaste market, then how do you increase market share? Show the toothpaste on TV fully spread fully across the toothbrush. Sales then sharply increase because too many people 'feel' rather than 'think'. Then how do you increase toothpaste sales? Sell toothbrushes that have longer bristle area - more area to cover with toothpaste. Sales again increase sharply. Then how do you increase sales? Enlarge the hole on toothpaste tubes. These are not speculations. These are the actual stories I grew up with. The toothpaste was Colgate. And toothpaste back then did nothing significant.

Want to see how emotional we are? Is that computer plugged into a $20 or $70 surge protector? The surge protector only works in the realm of emotion. Adjacent to your computer, it does nothing productive. But it can contribute to surge damage of a powered off computer. Why is it there? Emotion. You believe it must work because of the words - "surge" and "protector". It is located where it cannot be effective.

They cannot provide reality pictures of smokers that are ugly enough. Emotional, ugly pictures are necessary to force people, especially such emotional teenagers, into taking a look at the facts. Without those emotional pictures, the facts will be ignored by those who mostly think mostly using emotion.

Why do we not want others to urinate in the same room we are eating? Facts have little to do with our response. Our response is an emotional "diiissgggusssttttinggg". And yet we have not yet associated smokers with the same emotional response even though facts say otherwise.

[datalas]

> it does nothing productive. But it can contribute to surge
> damage of a powered off computer. Why is it there? Emotion.
> You believe it must work because of the words - "surge"
> and "protector". It is located where it cannot be effective.

On the contrary, we use a surge protector at work, where the power supply has detroyed five seperate power supplies in as many months. When we had the posher one (with a little light on it) you could almost party to its flashing....

although, on the whole if your power supply should be that poor in terms of quality (i.e. you live next to several HUGE kilns, ooh look capacative load ) then you should have words with your local supplier....

Although, I agree with the majority of the smoking by emotion thing Never could see a point to it, someone at school tried to get me to smoke and I was left thinking "Lets see I'm unpopular as it is, will smelling horrible, having no money and a shortened life span help?"

The conclusion was pretty easy to come to

Datalas

--

The only way you'll get me to smoke is by setting fire to my trousers.

[Nic Name]

As long as smoking is a matter of free choice, more government initiatives should be directed to prevent non smokers, particularly children, from making this distructive life decision.

I think these graphic Canadian cigarette package warnings are aimed at the non-smoking public, and they are a good strategy, even if smokers deride them as having no effect on their informed choice to continue smoking.

These warnings are necessary to combat the Tobacco industry's next generation of deceit focused on new "safer" brands. These advertised "safer" brands will have the same graphic warnings.

But, unless they are grossly graphic, Surgeon General's Warnings have little impact on young people, who feel immortal. We have to speak to them in terms they understand. They hate being ripped by government. They abhor being conned by big business. They want to consider themselves smarter than older generations.

Sycamore brings up a very good point. MONEY. The cost of a pack is, of course, largely tax, which ties our governments to the tobacco industry, as well. Government is addicted to tobacco taxes. Politicians are addicted to tobacco industry campaign donations. Smoking is a hidden tax, mostly levied on the poorest of our economy. But it is a voluntary tax, it is argued. So, we have to make our children aware of this hidden tax. Like us, they don't like getting ripped by the government, conned by big business, and duped by politicians supporting big tobacco.

Big money motivates my kids. They were stunned when I walked them through a financial analysis of the monetary cost of smoking a pack a day. It's staggering! I ran the numbers through a tax deferred retirement savings plan and showed the difference at age 65 between one person who smoked a pack a day from age 20, and another who saved the cost of a pack a day and contributed the savings annually into the retirement plan. The latter lives a healthier lifestyle and retires a millionaire at age 65; the other lives a life of poor health and may not be around to retire at 65, but he was short all that cash. I said to my kids, "If Bill Gates would make you a bet, that your couldn't stay off cigarettes 'til age 65, but if you did he'd give you a million dollars then, could you avoid the temptation to smoke?" "Definately!' they said. My parents never taught me about this. I learned from my mistakes.

P.S. That's a millionaire in Canadian Dollars, for those that want to argue my math.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by tw
Smokers have lower intelligence levels because of the chemical addiction process.

tw, would you mind presenting some information on this point? I'd be curious to see it.

That is not to say that 100% would be disuaded from smoking. It does not matter that those pictures don't affect you. But it does matter that those pictures cause more people to avoid the addiction. You cannot judge those pictures personally. They must be judged statistically.

They may help dissuade people from STARTING to smoke, but what about those that are already addicted?

It's up to those that are already addicted to quit. Maybe one of those pictures will light a fire under someone's ass. We don't know. There's a chance of it happening, and that's what's important - one person saved is worth it.

As far as dissuading people - that's worth it too. They really don't need to be smoking - there isn't any <b>good</b> reason to start, but there are a lot of bad things that can (and probably will) happen to you if you smoke your entire life. If it can keep one person from starting... then it's worth it.

My opinion, of course...

[juju]

Another point is, the cost to the cigarette companies of printing those huge colorful photos on every pack of cigarettes is most likely huge. So, that's yet another penalty they have to suck up.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by dhamsaic
It's up to those that are already addicted to quit.

I disagree. It's really in everybody's best interests to find a way to help people beat their addictions. I'm not going on statistics here, but here's how I see it:

--Lower health care costs for everyone...b/c those insurance companies are saving money that would be used to treat smokers ailments. Not to mention...

--Better health for others: Less people smoking means less secondhand smoke out there. A benefit for nonsmokers.

--Lower crime: People on drugs or alcohol commit crimes...crimes they may not commit if under the influence. Tobacco is a stretch here, sure, but people have killed or robbed others over cigarettes.

To me, it's more than saving those from starting...why give up on those that already started?

[Nic Name]

Big tobacco companies agreed to the cost of such messages and advertising in their various settlements of government litigation.

From an Internet appreciation point of view, for those that want to see the slickest public relations effort by an indefensible industry, just take a look at the website of Brown & Williamson, the company at the center of the movie, The Insider.

Actually, big tobacco favours these warnings because they argue that informed free choice of the risks of smoking is a legal defense and limitation of their liability for the damages they cause to the health of their customers. And the damages have run into the hundreds of billions, as you know.

As part of the settlement B&W agreed to make details of the litigation and settlement public on their website.

What a public minded corporate citizen! They'd have you believe.

Throughout Brown & Williamson's web site, we describe our organization as "A Responsible Company in a Controversial Industry."

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by sycamore
And that's great that you did it that way. But that's YOU. It doesn't necessarily work like that for everyone else.

Obviously not--there are all kinds of outcomes from an effort to quit smoking, and they're not all successful.

I'm skeptical of approaches that don't involve stopping cold turkey, or that attempt to substitute one drug for another. Some people do end up quitting while using patches or other drugs. I don't think there's any way to know if that really made it easier for them. That's probably one reson insurance companies don't want to pay for that kind of therapy. If there was a drug for nicotine like Antabuse for alcohol, you might see more willingness to cover that. Maybe. If they were convinced it would save them money.

A while after you stop dosing yourself the cravings do lessen, but there's a boatload of detoxfication to work your way though before you get there, and the longer you've been dosing yourself, the longer that's going to take. Cold turkey has to be the shortest path to reducing physiological dependancy...as long as you actually do *stop*, and *stay* stopped long enough that the idea of not falling back into the addiction has a higher value for you than the nicotine buzz does.

Beyond that, there are the behavioral issues: habituation rather than addiction. They can be a lot harder to tackle. Believing that your addiction is somehow different and less tractable than other people's can't be helpful on that score. "Ads don't work on me." strikes me as a curious thing to say. An ad isn't going to make you stop smoking...at best, all an ad can do is try to keep the ideas and issues in front of your concious mind, and work towards tipping the balance.

Reducing the spaces where smoking is permitted isn't to discourage smokers, it's for the benefit of the people who don't want to breathe your sidestream. There are no "no nicotine patches" zones.

You misinterpreted what I said, I think.

The fact of the matter is, unless you want to quit, you won't. That's what I'm trying to say. It's up to you to quit smoking. Whatever I can do to help, sure. But unless you want to, you won't.

As far as us trying to help them quit - I happen to agree with you that it's in the public's best interest for people to not be smoking. However, I can also see how some people might think "Well, why should I be responsible for other peoples' fuckups?" Example: my friend Andrea started smoking some 3 years ago. I told her "look, that shit is bad for you, and if you get cancer, don't come crying to me." She went into it knowing full-well that it's bad for her. Most smokers do. So why should there be an extra cost to those who don't smoke to help rehabilitate them? I happen to think that we should help smokers quit, but I also happen to think that they should bear the responsibility and financial burden of doing so. I'm not going to throw away my paychecks because someone else thought it would be cool to start smoking. No offense, of course - I'll still be your friend if you're a smoker. And if I can help you in some way (like kicking you in the shins when you light up, or gathering information for you to help you stop, or whatever), I will. But the whole "Well, the public should help us 'cause it's in their best interest" is kinda a shit argument. It's like me saying "Well, it's in the public's best interest to give me everything I want, because if they don't, I'll go kill people." BS logic.

As for the whole "better health for others" - yeah, or we can just stick your ass out in the cold Seriously though, when we were chilling on Friday, I didn't say anything about you smoking, although the smell makes me feel ill (funny thing - used to smoke, loved the smell, then quit and it became just about the grossest thing to me). Your [rental] car, your smoke. You're doing me a favor by driving. But if I were driving (heh, when I get a license and car), I would have politely asked that you not smoke in the car. Just like how you excused yourself to go outside and smoke. No offense, but the smoker is the one that should be wary of these things - they're the one that's putting out the second hand smoke that can cause cancer in others. It's something that comes with smoking - you excuse yourself from others and go smoke. Just like I excuse myself when I need to defecate, instead of making a nice pile on the floor in front of you. You're the one that's doing it, so you need to bear responsibility for it - and that might mean standing out in the cold while you smoke. I actually generally go outside with the person and stand and talk to them, but Friday night just seemed damn fuckin' cold.

Anyway. I'm all about being friends with smokers, and I'm all about helping them quit - but there is a point where it becomes their responsibility. That's one of the things I learned early on - every one of your actions has consequences. You need to ask yourself "what is it that I really want?" and then go from there. If you want cancer or yellow teeth or whatever, then smoke. If you want to live a healthy life free of physical addictions, then don't. I can't make that choice for you.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by MaggieL
I'm skeptical of approaches that don't involve stopping cold turkey, or that attempt to substitute one drug for another. Some people do end up quitting while using patches or other drugs. I don't think there's any way to know if that really made it easier for them.

It might be possible if a carefully controlled study were performed. I am not sure if there are any physiological measures (e.g. changes in brain activity) that could determine the severity of a craving.

Believing that your addiction is somehow different and less tractable than other people's can't be helpful on that score.

I believe that addictions can be unique. What works for me may not work for Joe Blow. Based on personal experience, I know what has been helpful for me and what has not.

"Ads don't work on me." strikes me as a curious thing to say. An ad isn't going to make you stop smoking...at best, all an ad can do is try to keep the ideas and issues in front of your concious mind, and work towards tipping the balance.

To me, it's like a desensitizing. You see it enough, you get used to it.

Reducing the spaces where smoking is permitted isn't to discourage smokers

I don't believe that is necessarily true. While I don't argue the health of others aspect, I suspect a psychological element to it as well--"If we make it harder for people to smoke, they will find that it is not worth it to smoke anymore." They have the right to reduce smoking areas...smokers will still find a place to light up.

Damn dude. You edited the shit outta that post.

And then you just deleted it.

[elSicomoro]

Yeah...I didn't like my presentation...I'll rewrite it.