At the European duty-free stores the cigarettes have these massive warning signs. There is a huge variety of warnings they seem to mix and match.
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oh no warning sign saying that it can cause impotence? Bad breath, and bad skin?
Warning: Nanny State
#1 Yes. There’s a lot of warnings. In all of the Union’s countries. And TV ads. And restrictions to smoke in public places that would make a New York smoke Nazi blush. And those are being pounded on us for several decades now. And it will bare fruit, eventually.
The flipside is on the third world and developing nations, that are being pounded by the tobacco companies, trying make up the loss of revenue.
Collect them all!
The text warnings are soon to be replaced by picture warnings.
Just Google “cigarette warning pictures” to see a few.
Solution: Buy a cigarette case!
#5 Funny how, for a year or so after the warnings become obligatory, the cigarette cases or jackets that covered the warnings were very popular. But then just faded away, and nobody cares anymore. I guess that subliminally, these warnings will slowly burrow through the skull and eventually will work.
These are pretty timid compare with Brazil’s warning labels. Google at your own risk, seriously.
#7 I’ve seen it. They’re not pretty. And also IMHO not effective. Shock advertisement is not as effective as simple steady prolonged in time advertising. Instead of pounding you in the head, you get that constant ticking inside your hear, until, eventually you stop fighting it.
These warnings are bad, how?
#9
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’m craving a cig after seeing those. srsly
The warnings are there so you can’t say you weren’t warned… when you inevitably find out that you are going to die a slow painful death and attempt to blame someone else. A lot of good that will do you.
Now go ahead and smoke until your lungs are black, if that’s what you want. It’s your right.
Here’s some other rights you should embrace…
Mix bleach and ammonia together. It will cut your cleaning time in half… or even less! Those Nazis at Javex just don’t want you to use other cleaning products.
Don’t look both ways before you cross the street. Those Nazi drivers don’t deserve your attention.
Go ahead and climb that power grid tower. I hear that the view’s great. The KEEP OUT sign that warns of ELECTROCUTION was put there by the Nazi electrical engineers who want the view all to themselves.
I like the warnings.
But I wish packages of cookies or non-diet soda had a picture of an obese person with a warning label saying “Too many calories will turn you into a land whale”.
#10–Loupee==can you talk more out of both sides of your mouth? The whole entire point of the warning is that they “social engineer.” You can’t logically/coherently say they aren’t bad per se and they go on to complain about the social engineering.
Stupidity posing as balance.
#13:
“I mean really, isn’t it mind boggling as to how humanity survived the onslaught of disease for a hundreds of thousand of years”
Of course, you’d hit middle-age in your twenties back then.
“As an aside-observation..I wonder if there are any studies or information
that have explored the medicinal values, if any, of “natural” tobacco”
The “studies” have produced a dandy super-toxic pesticide. It’s called nicotine sulfate. In it’s pure form, it is highly toxic in that a mere 350mg will kill you. (You can extract it yourself for use in your garden, but wash your food!)
Tobacco is a plant for which there is really not much good use, unlike hemp.
These are the new warnings in the uk.
They need to have these labels in the car showrooms, and Pringles potato chips as well as Parkay margarine, Oscar Mayer bologna, and candy bars & soda.
#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!
Just ban the bloody things! Oh wait governments make to much money form taxing them
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?
The Australian packets have the same warnings plus autopsy photos of, for example, a brain after a strokes etcetera. These warnings are displayed on posters in shops for all (including little kids) to enjoy.
Cigarettes are also taxed very highly while at the same time people are told they do not deserve medical help if they require it (even though they have already funded it through taxes) because it is there own fault they got sick. That’s fine if that is the criteria but give them back their taxes.
Re # 23 (Me)
stroke (not stroke)
their (not there)
P.S. I just woke up (in Australia).
Interesting, if not criminal, is that the same EU that mandates such warnings on cigarettes also bans Swedish snus in the EU, a product whose use in Sweden has resulted in the lowest smoking rate in Europe and the lowest incidence of smoking related diseases in the world.
But then, snus is still tobacco, so allowing it in all the EU as a much much safer alternative to smoking just doesn’t have the same puritan moral superiority than going for “quit or die” as the only alternatives. Besides, look at all the taxes that the “die” option brings in.
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.
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.
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.
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…
Trendy, overblown name for a mundane thing that I am already sick of:
snus
@ #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.