(Photo courtesy: Associated Press)Warning Watch: Cigarettes can be bad for you. I can't imagine there is anyone in our country who doesn't know that. But, yet, people still smoke. My dad is one of them. He smokes a lot. Wish he didn't. Politicians have raised taxes. They have said it's for people's health, not the millions in revenue the tax increases bring. Iowa's Governor Chet Culver successfully pushed for a $1 per pack tax increase (by the way, did you notice during the campaign how he kept saying he didn't raise taxes? Does a cigarette tax not count as a tax?) The smoking rate has dropped in half since the 1970s? But still about 1 in 5 American adults smokes. What will it take to get to that final "1"? Health advocates have hope in a new tactic: to scare you smokeless. The idea would be to put really graphic pictures to serve a final warning to you as you get ready to buy your next pack. The pictures are gross, without a doubt. But will they work? Do you think they will stop smokers? Or is this just a waste of time, money and effort?
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7 comments:
It's a waste, to be honest.
I'm a smoker who watched my mother died of lung cancer...there's nothing they can put on the pack of cigarettes that could be more graphic than seeing one of the people you love the most in this world wither away while in excruciating pain. And I *still* smoke.
We (smokers) know it's bad for us. Many of us want to quit and have tried many, many things attempting to do so. How about if they take the money they're tossing at this and create an *inpatient* detox program for nicotine addiction?? They say cigarettes are as hard to quit as many street drugs, but you have to quit cigarettes all on your own using "will power".
Something to think about.
I have to agree, it is a total waste. I too have lost loved ones to this and I still smoke. I have tried everything out there and I do think the money would be better used on an "inpatient" program.
You have to want to quit in order to stand a chance and even then it can be, for some of us, an impossible task! No amount of gross or graphic pictures are going to change things,after all, we all have seen the pictures of what lungs of a smoker look like and yet we are still out there smoking!
I have been a smoker for 35+ years and just yesterday went to Jordan Creek Mall and got the electric cigarette! really you HAVE to get one!! I am using the patch right now so I have the cartridges with no nicotine in them...I am swearing by this!! I even have vanilla flavored cartridges for this for a change I highly recommend this to anyone who is trying to quit and you can smoke indoors too! I am a walking testimony that IT CAN BE DONE!
Wow! Those labels stress me out, I need a smoke. ;-)
If the JEL campaign, scientific research, doctors, parents, friends, enemies, lawyers and the already existing warning on the box of cigarettes isn't a sufficient enough warning that they're bad for you, I don't know how graphic pictures of diseased lungs and corpses is going to persuade anyone to stop or not start smoking.
Denis Leary says it best, "It doesn't matter how big the warnings on the cigarettes are; you could have a black pack, with a skull and crossbones on the front, called TUMORS, and smokers would be around the block going, "I can't wait to get my hands on these f*@king things! I bet ya get a tumor as soon as you light up!"
How about not treating people like children or morons and spending all that money on programs to get people to quit smoking or just ban them if they're so dangerous. Marijuana is illegal, but cigarettes are not. That should be a giant red flag that nothing but money controls Washington. Sad.
@Dawn...I'd be much more willing to try it if you hadn't said "just yesterday" and "walking testimony that IT CAN BE DONE" in the same paragraph. You're using the patch and an e-cigarette...to me that's not quitting. Quitting is not having to use something to reproduce the experience of actually smoking.
That being said, I *have* looked at the e-cigarettes. The problem I have is that I pay $5.25 a pack for my cigarettes and the e-cigs are, minimum, $25. I really can't afford to shell-out $25 at once on a hope and a prayer.
Graphic labels will not work. People can buy cigarette holders to cover them up. This is a waste of mental energy. What about making cigarettes less addictive. There are so many extra additives in a cigarette, but no one really addresses the real issue. My husband has smoked most of his life and has tried everything to quit. Now cigarettes are so costly that he smokes a harsher brand of cigarette because of the lower cost. Great Cigarette Tax Governor glad to see that the government is making a buck.
Wow if these are some of the graphics that cigarette producers has to use. I bet cigarettes will still sell because it will start a new fad starting with kids. Who will have the gruesome graphic? Some booze has skull and cross bones it is a number one seller. It is all human nature. Tell no and they will do it anyways.
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