Whats the deal with anti-smokers?

Great Debates
1

I’m curious to know why smokers are continually harrassed (in the UK at least) to stop smoking. John Reid, the UK health minister, has proposed putting pictures of diseased lungs on cigarette boxes to put people off. I think they already have these in Canada.

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We recently got new health warnings that now cover at least half the front of the packets. They tell you things like that smoking will make you impotent. Also, we’ve had TV ads of smokers with some fatty gunk dripping out of the end of their cigarrettes, to show how cigarettes cause fatty build-up in you veins.

As a smoker, I want to know why we are being hounded like this. Every smoker knows that smoking is bad for your health. We have all read the health warnings, but decide to disregard them. This may be stupid, but its our choice. And hey, non-smokers die every day too. No-one gives up smoking because the packet comes with a bigger warning on the front. It wasn’t that we couldn’t read them before, you know. If you put a picture of a diseased lung, then you may scare off some smokers due to the “ick” factor, but then, you’d get the same effect if you put a picture of a healthy lung.

What I want to know is why aren’t there any similar campaigns? Obesity for example is a huge killer, but there are no health warnings on Hamburgers. People get cancer from too much sun-bathing, yet no pictures of rotting skin on sunbeds. Drinking causes liver disease, and yet I don’t get a picture of a diseased liver everytime I buy a pint. People get killed by cars everyday, but I don’t have to have a picture of a splattered head on my steering wheel.

So why are smokers singled out like this? It seems the anti-smoking lobby has an almost religious fervour and will not rest until all smoking is eliminated.

N.B. I can understand why non-smokers don’t like being in a room with a smoker. The banning of smoking in public places is a seperate issue. I’m talking about me smoking in my own home.

2

There does seem to be a real disparity in the difference between the health warnings for smoking and those for other hazardous acts. I don’t recall seeing pictures of someone who fell off a cliff outside rock-climbing facilities; a MacDonald’s hamburger doesn’t come with a shot of someone’s clogged arteries; car dealerships don’t have posters of people who’ve gone through windshields (nor does alcohol have the same pictures, or of grossly distended livers).

There is one sort-of obvious difference: Smoking is in no way essential or beneficial, so the risks seem that much more pointless.

Regardless, smokers are an easy target, and those looking to score political points, or feeling a zealous need to improve the world around them, get big payback from going after us. The actions of jerk smokers who aren’t considerate of non-smokers around them don’t help.

3

The hope is probably that nonsmokers, especially young ones, won’t start smoking.

These are good questions. I think there probably should be such campaigns. The big difference is that there’s nothing good about smoking. Hamburgers at least give nourishment, alcohol is beneficial in moderate amounts and cars get you from point A to point B. I have a harder time defending the lack of pictures of skin cancer victims on sunbeds. Sunbathing, last I checked, does little good.

While you smoking in your home may seem like a private matter to you, it does cause you to probably require more healthcare and the like. Thus you affect society’s resources, because you made what even you consider a stupid choice.

4

But there are campaigns to prevent drink-driving, and your doctor will always tell you to stop eating burgers, and to curb you alcohol intake. It’s a nanny-state thing. The state feels responsible for you, and tries to make you stop smoking, for your own good. That’s the key, I think. Giving up smoking is good for you. And the government shouldn’t really be criticised for trying to make smokers healthier. Campains for sun-block ran last sunmmer in the UK, I seem to remember, but the campaign doesn’t need to quite so strong, because no-one (few people?) are addicted to sunbathing. With smoking, I think they are rying to shock you out of your addiction.

Plus smoking smells bad.
Cheers.

5

Uh, smoking does private benefits. I’m a rare/occaisonal smoker (like, maybe a half-dozen cigars a year?) and the nicotine buzz I get is quite nice…

Also, even the compulsive cigarette sucking (which I will never engage in) seems to have benefits: it seems like a major social bonding thing for quite a few of my coworkers.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a stupid choice–the health risks are often drastically overstated, and there are people who smoke in moderation. Frankly, I think there are other unhealthy practices that are more detrimental to our society (speaking as an American) then smoking–like overeating.

Did anyone else love the “Smoke Out” (or whatever it was called) episode of South Park that featured Rob Reiner pursuing a win-at-all-costs war against big tobacco, all the while stuffing high-fat food into his disgustingly corpulent body?

6

This argument is used by the anti-smoking lobby, and it is totally flawed in two ways (at least in the UK).

Firstly, the tax collected on cigarettes pays for the entire National Health Service with plenty to spare. Because of this, I’d argue that smokers have a much bigger entitlement to free healthcare than non-smokers.

Secondly, if smokers didn’t die of smoking related diseases, they would carry on living into old age. They would be entitled to pension payments for however long they lived, and would also need some healthcare at some point. All this would probably work out more expensive than the treatment for a smoking related disease.

7

1s/private/provide/

8

Note also that the UK Treasury receives something like £8 Bn compared to its estimated cost to the NHS of £1.7 Bn, meaning that smokers are subsidising non-smokers by several billion pounds even when the cost of eg. smoking-related absenteeism and fires are factored in.

9

They (powers that be / complainers…) always cite 2nd hand smoke as a cause to keep smokers away from the general population. They (same group) lable cars as having the most to do with the greenhouse effect (which I also think could be just a planetary cycle but thats another topic) but cars produce tremendous amounts of CO in addition to thousands of other carcinogenic emmisions but, once again, you don’t see “Avoid Second-Hand Exhaust” stickers by the crowded streets in any resonably sized city at rush hour.
However, the hell that cigarrettes wreck within the body (aged skin, poor nutrient absorbtion, a lust for a beer to go with it) are self evident.

Here in Germany the cost of smokes have doubled since the onslaught of the € but people smoke more and more. I propose everyone quit for a couple of weeks and watch the Gov’t sweat over the loss of revenue!

10

A major difference between smoking and burgers is that hamburgers don’t cause an intense physical addiction. People who start eating hamburgers at the age of twelve may experience some difficulty going to a low-fat diet at age twenty, but it’ll be nothing compared to the difficulties a smoker will have trying to quit after eight years of smoking.

Adults make the decision to become addicted from a fully-informed perspective (or if they’re not fully-informed, it’s no longer the tobacco company’s fault). Kids, however, make the decision when they’re too young to consent. Addiction doesn’t care about age of consent. Therefore, the government has a very, very strong interest in dissuading kids not to take up the habit.

And if that means you gotta look at nasty pictures on your packs of smokes, well, I’m weeping big weepy tears.

Daniel

11

Got any statistics on the number of people who succesfully quit smoking vs. the number of people who succesfully adhere to a diet? :slight_smile:

I doubt either is going to be particularly high…

12

Obesity for example is a huge killer, but there are no health warnings on Hamburgers.

The anti-obesity campaign consists of paying fat people less (if they can get a job at all) and generally ignoring them. This seems to instill the desired inferiority complex/shame faster than warnings on Big Macs.

13

Anthony Burgess’s satiric fiction & essay book 1985 included the idea of cigs packaged with pics of diseased lungs (not as a recommendation, either).

Several months ago, there was a report of the dilemna that mental health workers had when it was found that mental patients were more cooperative with therapy & generally calmer when allowed to smoke, but greater regulations were restricting their smoking in their hospitals. Dennis Prager cited this as an example of the cruelty of political zealotry for “good causes”.

14

Actually, no I don’t. Thank god that has nothing to do with what I was saying :).

Daniel

15

I’m all in favor of people doing as they please as long as it doesn’t affect other people. Problem is that smoking DOES bother everyone around them. Why should we non smokers have to put up with the stank from some jerk burning a roll of leaves in his mouth at work or in some other enclosed public place like an airplane or restaurant? Forget the health issues. IMHO, it’s the same as if I excercized my God-given right to blow an air-horn every 30 seconds or carry a ridiculously bright flashlight regardless of where I was. Sure it’s probably not hurting anyone but it’s incredibly rude and inconsiderate. I think the best thing to happen to NYC is that I no longer come home from bars smelling like an ashtray with cigarrette burns from some drunk chick in my clothes.

That said, I am not a big fan of the Truth! ads where a bunch of smug hippies stage elaborate demonstrations about the evils of tobacco smoking. If people want to smoke, that’s their business. I’d just prefer they not do it around me.

16

You said that a major difference between smoking and unhealthy food was that it was harder to quit smoking. It seems to me that statistics on those who succesfully quit smoking and those who sucesfully change their eating habits have a lot to do with what you were saying, because such statistics could be used to provide evidence beyond a WAG that one was harder then the other.

17

It might. You said that the difficulty of losing weight “be nothing compared to the difficulties a smoker will have trying to quit after eight years of smoking.” Losing weight is quite difficult. My father quit smoking after many years of puffing away - but he never was able to lose weight. He died of a heart attack a few years ago. That’s anecdotal, of course, and I most emphatically do not want warning labels on my burgers, but eating is very addictive to a lot of people.

18

I’ll add - eating is addictive to a lot of people, including me. I’ve had a dog of a time losing any for an appreciative amount of time. But smoking? I smoked when I was thirteen. Addiction never gripped me, I never had more than a few a day, and quitting was a snap. But I’m 250lbs, not an ounce of which is muscle. Hrmph.

The answer? Let me make my own dumb mistakes. If I don’t make one sort of error, I’ll make another, and I don’t plan to live more than 90 years - tops - anyway.

19

I think its an example of the timeless ability of people (and the government) to try to nose into others business…for their own good of course. I can certainly understand and agree that restrictions should be put on the sale of such things to minors…but thats already in place. I can also agree with the restrictions put on the use of tobacco products in enclosed public places in some instances. Certainly no one but a smoker enjoys going to a restaruant to eat and having smoke in their face. I think its a bit crazy not to allow smoking in bars, at outdoor events, etc, personally, as long as its posted that smoking is permitted inside/outside in designated areas, etc, so non-smokers can make an informed decision on whether or not to enter.

But really, we ALREADY have these restrictions in place. You can’t smoke at work, on a plane, in most public facilities…even outdoors at sporting events now in many cases.

It seems to me the government and certain private citizens groups are going sever steps further in this thing. We don’t have pictures of diseased lungs on our packaging here (I’m a US’er, as The Master says ;)), nor any proposal I’m aware of to do so, but we certainly have the warnings. Tobacco companies aren’t allowed to advertise on TV, radio, etc. I’d say, enough is enough at this point…leave off anything more and leave these folks alone. Its THEIR decision.

As to the ‘kids’…again, there are already such things in place. Its illegal for them to purchase or use said products already. If they do so anyway, then they HAVE made a decision to do so. And I’m sorry, but folks seem to think kids are stupider than they are. I asked my 10 year old about cigarrettes and he seems to understand perfectly well that they are bad for him, cause cancer, etc. Hell, they talked about it in his health class and showed him those same pictures of diseased lungs (which totally grossed him out btw).

Just for the record, I’m NOT a smoker normally. I will occationally have a good cigar with a fine glass of whiskey (lit by a $100 bill preferably ;)) maybe once or twice a month…tops. I think smoking cigarrettes is fairly stupid, and you have to be pretty dense to take up the habit (my dad smokes 2 packs a day, much to my dismay). But its THEIR decision, and as long as it doesn’t impact me, or I can make an informed decision (like the bar thing I mentioned earlier) to be around smokers, I say leave em the hell alone.

-XT

20

You’ll note that I was speaking of an intense physical addiction. I’ve never seen any evidence that high-fat foods are physically addictive.

Look, if you want to argue that switching to a healthier diet a la the ADA’s recommended one is just as difficult as quitting smoking, be my guest – but that’s your argument to make. Don’t expect to refute me based on my laziness. You want to claim that the distinction I’m drawing between smoking and overeating (namely, that the former is physically addictive) is unimportant, let’s see your arguments.

I know that switching diets is difficult. But I don’t know that it’s got a physical-addiction component.

Daniel