thehereticking says:

#14 here in France food advertising does carry a similar message. Not quite as strongly worded as the cigarette types, but telling you to eat better and move more! They need to do something tho, in the last 10 years obesity has completely got out of control here, especially amongst young people – and worse amongst young children, which I always find quite sad.

Just had a big upset here too because they’ve finally ruled definitively that company vehicles (including trucks) are considered an enclosed place of work and therefore subject to a no-smoking policy, even if it is your own vehicle but you use it for work. That’s always been the case in the UK since the ban so not a surprising ruling, but you know what the French are like about smoking!

Scott says:

Social engineering is nothing new. For example,
I think most people nowadays agree that racism as was practiced in the 1950s is not how we want to behave. Society has been socially engineered to solve that.

Bringing up your kids involves small scale social engineering.

Social engineering is just a tool. Use it for bad things and that is bad. Use it to stop drink drivers by social pressure and that is good.

If what they say on the packets is true, then they are trying to use the truth to stop something that is in great need of dissapearing. Or do you think that smoking does not cause all sorts of nasty diseases?

LDA says:

Re # 23 (Me)

stroke (not stroke)
their (not there)

P.S. I just woke up (in Australia).

Zybch says:

The warnings and images of rotting teeth and diseased lungs, hearts and arteries on Australian tobacco products makes the warnings shown in this story look kinda pathetic.

gigwave says:

Canadian ciggies have the ugly pics as well as written warnings covering half the package. Adults with schizophrenia are encouraged to smoke tobacco as the improvement in their quality of life is worth the payoff of potential disease and death. This was explained to me by the mother of a schizophrenic 22 year old son.

Mark Baars says:

I so agree with you # 20… Come on!! There’s so much stuff “bad for you” and “Nanny State” only warns us for fast food and smokes??

How about car accidents, robberies, being hit by a bus, choking on a candy and extreme strangle sex?? No warning labels there!!!

Please let people make their own choices… All the warnings and smoke banns doesn’t really seem to be right in a country that has “freedom” as a priority…

Xanthippa says:

@ #18:

Yes, there are studies that have proven that tobacco smoking has strong medicinal value, especially for people who have Crohn’s disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and related diseases where the bowels become inflamed and cannot absorb nutrients. Smoking tobacco has been shown to reduce this inflamation and helps people lead more normal lives.

Every drug – and every medicine has side effects. It is important to weigh the relative benefit to harm ratio before taking any of them. That is – and must remain – each individual’s right. With it goes the responsibility to actually learn about the stuff before taking it!

@ #23
The information on the packets is not actually ‘true’. No, I am not denying the statistical data – far from it (I don’t, nor would I ever smoke precisely because I am aware of the statistics).

We are talking about ‘oversimplification to the point of error’! And, that is bad science because it will actually result in loss of trust and the opposite effect from what was intended, if you get my meaning (sorry if I am not clear…I’ll try to elaborate).

There ARE people who have smoked for 60 or 80 – or more – years, daily, some heavily, and who do not display any of the diseases which the packages depict as ‘being caused’ by smoking tobacco.

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.

Therefore, claiming ’causes’ on the labels will backfire: a kid sees his friend’s great-grandma, 90+ years old, smokes like a chimney, no sign of disease… What will the kid believe? The warning signs, or his eyes?

If we ‘exaggerate’ or ‘oversimplify to the point of error’, we are weakening our case and undermining our credibility.

green says:

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

regfman says:

I think this campaign would be very effective:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/new_anti_smoking_ads_warn_teens

tursiops says:

Well I live in Ireland and here you cannot smoke in any public place, only outside. And for the warning, yeah I don’t think it makes much difference anyway, in a message form or in a picture form. For my part I’m the only one who doesn’t smoke in a family of heavy smokers, and I’m happy with it.