# Your ideas to get teens to stop/never smoke
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [October 26, 1999, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289 "1999-10-26T03:43:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@AuraSeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuraSeer)
#### Post date: [October 26, 1999, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/21 "1999-10-26T18:02:00Z")
Even as far back as I can remember, both my parents smoked. My mom would stop while she was pregnant with us kids, but she’d restart not too long afterward.
One time, when I pretty small, I asked my dad if I could try one of his cigarettes. He suddenly looked really surprised, and not at all happy.
My dad explained that cigarettes taste bad and hurt your lungs, and that he only smoked because it was hard to stop. When he said he didn’t ever want to catch me smoking, I don’t recall what the exact expression on his face looked like; all I know is that it upset me so much, I decided I’d never smoke a cigarette.
I’m not saying that this would work for everyone. All I know is that I never found cigarettes to be remotely cool, attractive, or interesting.
* * *
Laugh hard; it’s a long way to the bank.
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### Author:  [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)
#### Post date: [October 26, 1999, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/22 "1999-10-26T18:38:00Z")
I’m sure most teens buy smokes one pack at a time. Why not show them how much it costs to smoke a pack a day for a year, 10 years, 20 years? (Don’t forget to add in inflation.) That’s a jaw-dropping waste of cash. That’s money they could be spending on booze! 😉
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### Author:  [@Gail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gail)
#### Post date: [October 26, 1999, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/23 "1999-10-26T18:44:00Z")
I think that if teenagers met people who were deathly ill from smoking, the smart ones would change their minds about it.
There are programs for teens, where they can meet someone who can’t speak naturally because their larynx was removed,due to cancer from smoking. Something about that flat, mechanical voice really gives me the creeps.
The reason I say the smart teens would change their minds is that many teenagers have no concept of being middle aged or old. They think that everything will always be just as it is right in this moment.
* * *
–Gail
“Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place.” --John Cleese
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### Author:  [@SqrlCub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SqrlCub)
#### Post date: [October 26, 1999, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/24 "1999-10-26T19:00:00Z")
I believe the ciggarette companies have to help pay the medical bills because they lied to their consumers saying it was not harmful and was non-addictive over a long period of time; whereas, alcohol companies always admitted that alcohol was addictive and dangerous to your health.
HUGS!
Sqrl
* * *
Move over Satan. 😉 Now there’s something meatier. [http://smallwonder.simplenet.com/COC.html](http://smallwonder.simplenet.com/COC.html)
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### Author:  [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)
#### Post date: [October 26, 1999, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/25 "1999-10-26T19:30:00Z")
Slightly off topic, but interesting–
Has anyone else seen this brilliant ad on television? It features a woman who was beaten by her husband while she was pregnant. They show pictures of her all beaten up as she tells the story of how she got away and got help, for her sake and her children’s. A very powerful ad (long, too–almost a minute) and a good message.
Then, at the end–“From your friends at Phillip Morris.”
Corporate thought process behind this: “Well, we can’t actually advertise our product on television, so let’s make a public service announcement attacking something we can all agree is bad–say, wife beating. When they hear our name at the end, people will say, ‘Oh, what a nice, thoughtful, ambiguously-named corporation Phillip Morris is! They really care about people–enough to stand up to spouse abuse! I don’t know what they sell, but I’m buying it!’”
Of course, they could be trying to correct their balance in the Karma Bank, but I doubt it.
Dr. J
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### Author:  [@smilingjaws](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smilingjaws)
#### Post date: [October 30, 1999, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/26 "1999-10-30T04:53:00Z")
1. Show ads with real people smoking–old, fat, teeth missing, little lines around their mouth, lower class sitting on a trailer step in a dirty undershirt–voice giving statistics on the type of people most likely to smoke–poorer, less educated, etc.
2. Fines for anyone under 18 caught smoking–$100, and increases.
3. Class action suits by parents against stores selling to minors
4. Taxes of $1 million per instance of each main character in a film who smokes. Now every character in a teen film smokes–especially the “cool” kids
5. Constant ad bombardment with images of the skin, teeth, and wrinkles of long term smokers. Ads with fat people smoking and ironic voiceover of how smoking helps you keep your weight down.
NOte: This is not a slur against fat people–only a statement that many teen girls smoke to keep weight down and while smokers are about 10 pounds less than non-smokers, 10 pounds isn’t much.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)
#### Post date: [October 30, 1999, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/27 "1999-10-30T14:34:00Z")
UncleBeer said:
> [@](#):
>
> Not to carp here Shirley, but your “rose colored glasses perfect world” bit sounds like a horrible invasion of privacy, ala 1984. Do you really want to hire the additional number of cops it would take to enforce something as pervasive as teen smoking. I know I don’t.
More to the point, how are you going to pay for it without tobacco taxes?
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### Author:  [@Konrad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Konrad)
#### Post date: [October 30, 1999, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/28 "1999-10-30T15:25:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> In a more reality based program, I think it should be mandatory to take kids, 10 years
> old or so, through the cancer wards and have discussions with life long smokers who’ve
> have their voice boxes removed.Ever talk to someone who has to use what looks like
> an electric razor pressed to his throat to speak. It will weird you out. Maybe see first
> hand what a diseased lung looks like. Shock treatment.
Hey that’s a great idea! Since kids obviously aren’t sentient till they turn 18 you can do anything you want to them. We know what’s best for them.
I propose we implant dem new fangled V-chips in their heads and make them get an electric shock every time they think about smoking. That’ll learn 'em.
After all they don’t know what they want, they’re too young to think.
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### Author:  [@realm505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/realm505)
#### Post date: [November 1, 1999, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/29 "1999-11-01T00:21:00Z")
easy, have you ever seen a person with a fake voice box? or ever heard someone “burp” to speak becuse their voice box is so thrashed it had to be removed?
It kept me from smoking.
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### Author:  [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)
#### Post date: [November 1, 1999, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/30 "1999-11-01T00:39:00Z")
Indeed, it takes more than “geeky” characters being the smokers to get the message across to the young’uns. Tobacco must be made as unattractive as possible.
I always thought those poor folks who’ve had their jaws removed due to cancer made great anti-tobacco spokesmen. Hit teens where it hurts: their faces.
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### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [November 1, 1999, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/31 "1999-11-01T17:00:00Z")
Each kid requires their own method.
I’d think taking them up to the hospital and showing them the right ward should suffice to implant their minds forever.
But then I know a lot of adults who smoke & nothing youc an say can get them to change their minds.
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### Author:  [@Melatonin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melatonin)
#### Post date: [November 1, 1999, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-ideas-to-get-teens-to-stop-never-smoke/10289/32 "1999-11-01T23:12:00Z")
“But then I know a lot of adults who smoke & nothing youc an say can get them to
change their minds.”
Handy, it’s called “addiction.” There are not a whole lot of adult smokers who actually _want_ to have to go outside and stand by the dumpster in the cold and “enjoy” a smoke.
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