Stupid smoking PSAs

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Sentinel Wow. I don’t think that Denis Leary or Bill Hicks could have said it better. Hehheh…
I’m an ex-smoker. I have one occasionally. I don’t bug people who smoke, because it bugged the crap out of me. (my dad is an ex-smoker, and kept telling me the crap. Then I visited him not too long ago and he was smoking again. Ha I say)

These ads make me want to spark up too. Just to show those punks whose boss. But wait… something just came to me? Are the tobacco companies using reverse psychology on us? Getting more to smoke? Oh no, the horror… or paranoia.

I think all non-smokers who can’t deal with smoke should move to california and stay inside all the time. Ya can’t even smoke in bars there for pete’s sake. ugh.

“Rolling with the dopes you know. Rolling with the wrong gun on you”
“I dream that she aims to be the bloom upon my misery”

  • I Miss The Girl Soul Coughing
22

Sentinel and disreputable_1, thanks for your contributions. I hope you’ll have time to glance at my reply.

Sentinel, I appreciate the way you must have felt when asked not to smoke although you were in a designated smoking section. I can see how that would have made you feel angry.

The “Truth” ads are run by the American Legacy Foundation. I cited the web page above.

You noted that R.J. Reynolds had begun to make a smokeless cigarette and that FDA action discouraged further development. My understanding is that FDA’s concern was not that the product involved a “controlled narcotic” (nicotine, a stimulant, is available over the counter in the US in the form of patches and gum) but rather that the device could have been used as a delivery device for other drugs, such as “crack” cocaine. Personally, I did not find that argument compelling, though others did.

In fact, I continue to believe that cigarette companies should be ENCOURAGED to develop methods of delivering nicotine that do not involve tobacco. As nicotine is a pharmacologically active compound, they should develop these products under FDA regulations, as other pharmaceutical companies do. However, as you correctly imply, it is the tobacco (and smoke) that is dangerous to both smokers and non-smokers, not the nicotine. I continue to hope that some rational thinking will prevail, and tobacco companies can be convinced to eschew tobacco products and begin marketing safe nicotine-delivery devices to those who want them (under FDA guidance, of course).

You may be intereseted to learn that Phillip Morris is currently marketing a “reduced smoke” tobacco smoking system called the Accord® here in Richmond. I have tested it and will soon be reporting that it reduces smokers’ intake of at least one harmful component of cigarette smoke, carbon monoxide, at least in the short-term. Any long-term benefits have yet to be evaluated. So far as I know, FDA has no plans to act positively or negatively on the Accord®.

direputable_1, I found your comments regarding “dot-orgs” confusing. The group to which I alluded in my earlier note, the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, is a scientific society that does not, to my knowledge, seek tobacco settlement money. SRNT is made up of hundreds of scientists who have long had an interest in addiction generally and tobacco use/nicotine dependence specifically. Thus, their interest in smoking cessation and prevention of tobacco use in children and adolescents is neither novel nor shrouded in idealism. I suspect most SRNT members prefer to think that they are illuminating these important issues with careful science.

I hope you’ll take the time to learn more about SRNT at:
http://www.srnt.org/

I agree with you that parents have a certain responsibility to monitor their children, and have an opportunity to help their children make healthy decisions regarding tobacco use.
Importantly, tobacco companies like Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds have long used potent advertising techniques to undermine parental influence on children’s choice behavior. Sadly, in many cases, these advertising strategies have won out over parental concern.

Thanks again for your time,

Eissclam.

23

I just saw three of these damn commercials in one commercial break. Talk about badgering. The first was the “lie detector” one, then after a few different ads, they ran the bungee jumping one twice, back to back. It’s where three kids bungee jump off a bridge to pick up a can of soda and drink it in mid air. When the third kid opens his can, it explodes, leaving a dangling bungee cord, which is quickly replaced with a message akin to “There is only one product that kills half the people who use it, Tobacco.” Actually, considering heart disease is America’s number one killer, the same logic would vilify fast food restaurants like McDonald’s.

24

Other than it being pure bullshit (hey, it’s marketing), I thought the bungee one was a great take off on the surge ads… now thats an extreme drink. And the guy exploding in mid air… hehehehe…
Okay, maybe I just get a sick thrill from watching “extreme” people get hurt, maimed, and killed.

http://www.madpoet.com
Clerks - Just because they serve you doesn’t mean they like you.

25

I like that PSA mainly because I didn’t realize it was going to BE a PSA until the very end. Up until then, I thought it was one of those clever Sprite commercials lampooning a Mountain Dew commercial. I generally find PSAs to be ridiculous, but that one was well done, IMO.

26

Are PSA’s against smoking really neccessary? It’s pretty much universal knowledge now that lighting up exposes the smoker and the surrounding non-smokers to all kinds of potential nasties. Regardless that the tobacco industry lied about the affects in the past, didn’t people eventually make the connection between smoking and health problems before the warnings were printed on the packs? I smoke about a half pack a day myself and I do so knowing the potential risks. (Everybody else smokes in my house too–not heavily, but they smoke.) I’ll probably quit here real soon because the cost is so prohibitive nowadays.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, the PSA’s suck! Where’s my lighter?

“It’s only common sense,
There are no accidents 'round here.”

27

Tell, just what, exactly is the number one killer of Americans – aside from other Americans?

Far too long ago, in an era far, far away, the average American citizen could watch television, listen to the news and read the paper with a great expectation of not being lied to nor having the facts distorted within certain groups, like the medical reports and general news – often told in somber voices by the great somber, honest and factual Huntly and Brinkly.

When it was claimed that heart disease was the number one killer of adult American males, we believed it. When we were told that cancer killed 1 in 100, we believed it. When breast cancer became the number one killer of adult females, we believed it and that car accidents were the number one killer of Americans, we believed it.

Now, who the fuck gathers the statistics and since when did it become acceptable to downright lie about them to enforce your cause? Like the anti-smokers do liberally.

For a time, illegal hard drugs were the number one killer of young adults. Now it is cigarettes as the number one killer, which somehow has managed to displace heart disease, though the heart association still insists that heart attacks kill more people than those on drugs – and now they include women.

Heroine and other IV drugs soared to the NUMBER ONE KILLER spot sometime in the 70s, though cancer suddenly jumped up to the same spot and accidents on the roads began to vie for the position. Somewhere in the 80s booze became the number one killer, with drugs sharing the spot and then violent crime banged at the back door and joined them. Smokes became the number one cause of lung disease and heart disease, and heart disease itself slid somewhat down to number two spot but rallied and by the mid 80s was the number one again.

Someone tossed in disease and starvation as the number one killer of children world wide, just to round things out and violent crime soared to number one along side it while smokes stayed within the number one disease causing spot and drugs sputtered around for a time.

Now smoking is the number one killer of Americans, while cancer in general has risen from 1 in 100 to something like 1 in 6 and is still considered the number one killer, though breast cancer itself seems to be the number one killer of women while prostate cancer has suddenly shot up to be the number one killer of men and heart disease has slid down the pole. Victims of violent crime rallied for a time and became the number one killer followed by all forms of drugs.

Then came the various statistics claiming no standing at all but stating that this or that disease, condition or attitude kills X number of Americans, more than are killed in traffic accidents or by any other means while the antismoking people insist that smoking kills the most out of everything and the cancer people keep insisting that cancer does while the heart people and prostate guys keep assuring us that they kill the most people.

Shit! My head hurts!

The no smoking jerkwads insist that smoking is the ultimate killer while the antidrug fanatics insist drugs kill the most and the medical people insist that various diseases kill the highest while the police claim violent crime and stupid drives do each other in the most.

So, what is the number one killer of all? Personally, I figure it is AIDS, which no one has mentioned. (DON’T TELL THAT TO THE NO SMOKING ASSHOLES BECAUSE THEY’LL LINK IT SOMEHOW TO SMOKING.)

We need a real, unbiased, independent, unbribable statistic center to corollate all statistics – instead of these crappy, manipulated opinion poles and selective research things. Plus laws to keep liars like the anti-smokers from trying to distort the truth.

28

Let’s try it this way:

Smoking is the number one AVOIDABLE cause of death in the US.

Satisfied?