Cigarettes: Prevention and Quitting

Post Reply New Topic

Article on Cigarette Cover Change Below:
Graphic Images on Cigarette Covers

Pictures of Example Covers:
Slideshow

Video about this change:
Grim cigarette labels aim to curb cigarette users

Thoughts, anyone?

It's bigotry and intolerance packaged as 'helping' smokers. It doesn't. Smokers know the risks and are happy to take them.

I just quit, and I don't regret missing out on the super-cool new packs.

Why would you say it's bigotry? There are others that suffer the consequences from second-hand smoking. For example, how would a child deal with his or her parents smoking if (s)he would rather not want the consequences coming from it? Others may get asthma from second-hand smoke. My brother has asthma and can't be around smokers.

Prove that second-hand smoking exists. Even Roy Castle, a British entertainer who has repeatedly been cited as a sufferer of an extreme case of second-hand smoke, was a smoker and drinker himself.

Again, I believe that the anti-smoking bandwagon is killing people's livelihoods, dividing entire communities, and leaving a lot of people, especially the elderly, very lonely in its wake. I'd like to see an immediate repeal of the smoking ban and a return to the concept of private property.

I have never smoked in my entire life, and I hate smoking with a passion. But my father has been a smoker since he was 9. My mother developed asthma from second-hand smoke. My father is finding it harder and harder to recover from colds and flu. This Monday my mother told him he should go to outpatients because he's had a bad cold and cough for over three weeks. Just because some people who smoke live to old age mean most people will be as lucky. But whatever, it's your decision to not only ruin your body inside, but outside when your teeth turn brown and your fingers look like they've been dipped in feces.

How about if they just stop making cigarettes. But no, the companies just want to make money and also smokers will just make their own if they outlawed companies making them.

And just for the sake of an argument, lets start putting warning labels on junk food and in fast food restaurants, also have warning labels on alcohol products too and tobacco. Lets help overweight people and other people who drink and chew so there be more healthy kids and less obesity.

Point is I don't really agree with this. There are other ways like schools teach this and there are already numbers and brochures that say in doctor offices that smoking is bad for your baby. Even WIC offices have them too. It's even online. All these labels are unnecessary or else they would have to do it with other products too that is also not good for you.

I agree - they should either make it illegal or give it a rest. But they would loose too much money if they did

Scare campaigns don't work - they only create further resentment on both sides and appealing to negative emotions to achieve a positive result is stupid, inefficient and generally a waste of time and money.

You forget that charities like ASH don't want smoking to be illegal. They just want tobacco use to be further restricted and the lives of smokers to be furtrher denormalised and for them to be treated like dirt. Do not ever suspect that they want cigarettes to be made illegal. That would remove their funding from the state overnight. (99% of their income comes directly from the State.)

Sallamandrina: Whereabouts do you live in Europe? You're about one of the most sensible people I've seen on WP so far. Especially with that avatar.



Can you prove that? Many a time these days a lot of things are attributed to second-hand smoke when, in a good many cases, they had nothing to do with it per se. They were just stuck down as a possible cause. You find this increasingly often now, with any lung cancer diagnosis in the UK being attributed to smoking. It couldn't possibly be anything else, it's smoking.

I agree with that too and also with the inefficiency and stupidity of their campaigns - stigmatising smokers is completely unnecessary and counter-productive. Don't even get me started on how many health professionals promote those vile nicotine substitutes. I seriously doubt any of them cares about public or individual health, the whole thing is just a huge cash cow.



Thank you - I think you have a very realistic view on many controversial issues. Lucidity is a rare thing, just don't let it make you too cynical or bitter

I'm temporarily in the UK but lived in several other European countries and have mixed ancestry - I don't feel I really have a national identity myself and feel more or less at home everywhere in Europe

You all have pretty interesting points. Now, IF (being completely hypothetical) we were to get people to stop smoking, what would be more effective? I think your answers would be pretty interesting.

You can't get people to stop doing anything. At best, you can move the places where they do it, and reduce the harm done to others. Tobacco, alcohol, weed, heroin, fast driving, political argument, or whatever, prohibition doesn't work.

I guess there's a natural urge to rebel against something.

BTW, looking at those pics reminded me what a smoker told me once - those images create stress and the first thing a smoker does when they are stressed is... to light a cigarette of course

TBH gailryder17 I don't want to get anybody to stop smoking - as long as it's legal I think people have a right to make their own decisions and live with the consequences. Assuming for the sake of discussion I would try to persuade a loved one to stop for one reason or another I'd probably try to help then analyse and examine the reasons they smoke and what they think they get out of it. Most people think it's a pleasure and a crutch but I believe that's often an illusion. So basically, understanding the underlying mechanisms that lead to smoking and positive motivation. This is very important in my view, as people who give up smoking under pressure or against their will suffer a lot more in the process, keep being resentful about it for years and either never get rid of the psychological cravings or they start hating everybody who smokes (because those can still "enjoy" something they are being denied). It's a lot easier to help people change bad habits and even addiction by making them feel good about themselves and in control than miserable, scared and guilty.

Great point, Sallamandrina.

You know what would be cool? If there was a survey of what smokers get out of smoking (fantasizes about how it'd make a good assignment in the future)

scare tactics did work for my mom...I told her what someone on wp told me about tobaco companies growing tobacco in radioactive soil, and that people die not from the smoke as much as radioactive poisioning, and that it causes gentic changes in a person's offspring. After that she quit cold turkey which she found did not make her near as sick as nicotine replacements when she tried before.
I dont know if all the above is true or not, but all that matters to me is that she quit.

They should just outlaw cigarettes and get it overwith. But not outlaw them as criminalize users but criminalize producers and treat all addictions as a health issue not a criminal issue