brian t says:

You think that’s bad? Look for pics of “Death Cigarettes”, which sounds like it was inspired by Denis Leary’s “No Cure For Cancer”. He joked about a black pack with a skull and crossbones on the front, which is exactly what these were, except they were called “DEATH”.

I fully support the rights of anyone to do anything stupid – as long as they don’t hurt anyone else in the process. Smoking FAILS on the last criterion, so that’s case closed IMHO. It’s over. Give it up.

Fatpie42 says:

#10 I don’t think the warnings are bad per se. It’s the whole social engineering process I don’t like. Sure its great if it supports your cause but if you are on the receiving end … not so good.

I hardly see how these labels are ‘social engineering’. They don’t seem any worse than the warning label on nuts that says “may contain nuts”.

Labels which tell you important facts about your product are a good thing. Smoking has huge health risks and it makes sense to ensure that consumers know what those health risks are before they start getting themselves addicted to ciggerettes.

As was noted earlier:
#28 Seems perfectly sensible to me. Given scientific hard facts are generally correct, the majority of people who smoke are fundamentally stupid. Clearly only a nice big simple sign with simple words is going to get through to them.

#33 Science is not a democracy – if you have 1 single case where it can be shown that what you say is false, even if it is true in fifty billion other cases, that 1 time it does not work ‘falsifies’ – proves to be false – your theory/hypothesis.

We know perfectly well the science behind the tobacco damage. And, we know that it is a strong contributing factor which will greatly increase the probability of these diseases in MOST people. We also know perfectly well that it will not affect a very small percentage of people.

Um, “strong contributing factor” and “cause” are different how?

“Well, the knife on his neck was a ‘strong contributing factor’ to his death by blood loss from the throat, but then again another person with a tougher, thicker neck would have survived so we can’t say that knife attacks to the throat ’cause’ deaths, can we? Ain’t science great?” *slapface*

A single exception does not completely undermine a hypothesis. That’s not how science works.

#35 Ban the sale of them already, or STFU plz and thx.

Yeah, because prohibition is a fantastic idea. Labels on ciggerettes ensure that consumers are fully informed. Taxes on ciggerettes ensure that the government can afford health treatments for smoking-related diseases. In other words both labels and taxes are for the benefit of smokers!