[BenignDesign]

For those who haven't heard, the FDA released 9 image-based warning labels which will soon be used on cigarette packs (you can see them here).

In the words of Denis Leary:

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There's a guy - I don't know if you've heard about this guy, he's been on the news a lot lately. There's a guy - he's English, I don't think we should hold that against him, but apparently this is just his life's dream because he is going from country to country. He has a senate hearing in this country coming up in a couple of weeks. And this is what he wants to do: He wants to make the warnings on the packs bigger. Yeah! He wants the whole front of the pack to be the warning. Like the problem is we just haven't noticed yet. Right? Like he's going to get his way and all of the sudden smokers around the world are going to be going, "Yeah, Bill, I've got some cigarettes.. HOLY SHIT! These things are bad for you! Shit, I thought they were good for you! I thought they had Vitamin C in them and stuff!" You fucking dolt! Doesn't matter how big the warnings are. You could have cigarettes that were called "Warnings". You could have cigarettes that come in a black pack, with a skull and a cross bones on the front, called "Tumors" and smokers would be lined up around the block going, "I can't wait to get my hands on these fucking things! I bet you get a tumor as soon as you light up! Numm Numm Numm Numm Numm" Doesn't matter how big the warnings are or how much they cost. Keep raising the prices, we'll break into your houses to get the fucking cigarettes, ok!? They're a drug, we're addicted, ok!? Numm Numm Numm Numm Numm *wheeze*

As a former smoker, I think the new labels are a ridiculous waste of time, effort, and most importantly money. Smokers know smoking is bad for them and everyone around them. It's an addiction. Photos of dead people and drawings of sick babies aren't going to make them quit.

But I'm curious about your thoughts on the subject: are the new labels a good thing? bad thing? pointless waste of time?

This post has been edited by BenignDesign: 21 June 2011 - 10:21 AM

[xclite]

I have a smoker friend who says he's quitting because he doesn't want to see the images. He knows it's bad, but having to carry that picture is stopping him. He did make a statement that he thinks it should be illegal to force a company to put shocking images on their packaging.

[Nykc]

They should put a picture of Ryan Dunn on alcohol bottles.

[dorknexus]

I think most people know they are bad but they don't know how bad they are. Perhaps these will help to better illustrate that.

[gabehabe]

We've had these for years, just without pictures.

[creativecoding]

I think anything more than a danger/cancerous warning label is too much. People like DARE have done a good enough job for everyone to know that they are bad for you.

I think it should be illegal or against policy to force shocking images onto a product. Its like some vegans putting pictures of dead animals onto your meat.

I had a thought. I think since we focus so much on "smoking is bad, mkay?" It gives smoking much more appeal to kids who just want to do something against the rules. Their kids, they don't care if it may hurt them. They just want to disobey rules.

[souptoy]

Pointless...I used to smoke...it took an extended hospital stay and diloted to get me off of cigarettes. Leary is right. I would bet a majority of people won't think twice about the images. xclite's friend might be an exception.

The images aren't really shocking as much as obnoxious in the sense that its all over the packaging. I agree with xclite's friend about forcing the company to put huge images like that on their packaging...if they really want people to quit, they should just tax the hell out of it. They're already doing that in CA...along with making it close to impossible to smoke anywhere without being fined.

To be clear, I don't support smoking. I just think the anti-smoking people take it a little far.

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They should put a picture of Ryan Dunn on alcohol bottles.

If were gonna follow the tobacco trend, they should do something similar to what Jones Soda does with their bottles except they should put random pictures of victims of fatal drunk driving accidents on their bottles.

[xclite]

I found DARE to be pretty much a joke growing up, as did all of my friends. I never did drugs because I didn't like the immediate or the long term (lifestyle) effects, not because somebody lectured me about the legal consequences.

[supersloth]

probably won't matter to established smokers, but i can see it being a deterrent to new smokers.

mostly i just see a burgeoning market of cigarette cases again. invest now!

[BenignDesign]

If it helps a few people to quit, then maybe it's not all bad.

But the anti-smoking literature that gets thrown around, shoved in the face of sidewalk smokers, spewed forth by every non-smoking militant in existence, usually has images just as graphic - if not worse - than these warning labels. I've watched people die from lung cancer who continued to smoke to the bitter end. I know people who have to tote around oxygen tanks to breathe, but continue to puff away on their Marlboros despite the possibility of the gas exploding. I know people who will blow smoke in their children's faces because they find the kids' facial expressions humorous.

Personally, I've read warning after warning about smoking causing low birth weight babies. I've seen pictures of tiny, weak, innocent newborns stuggling to survive, hooked up to numerous tubes and sealed in an incubator... but I smoked through both of my pregnancies and on both ocassions, delivered healthy, beefy, beautiful children - both weighing in at over 9.5 pounds. For me personally, if 9.5+ pounds was low birth weight, I shudder to think what they may have weighed had I not smoked at the time.

Honestly, how many smokers are not aware that smoking can cause cancer? And how many of them have quit because of it? Like I said, if it helps a few, great. But I don't think it's going to help enough people to make it worth the expense.

If I were still smoking, I would probably buy a cigarette case just to cover the warning labels so I wouldn't have to see them all the time.

[lordofduct]

So I quit smoking last February, and since... I couldn't care less.

Yeah there's the place in the back of my head, that freedom of choice Liberal/Libertarian part of my brain that says I think it's total crap and the sort. But the primary part of my brain says, "eh, what the fuck ever, do it... it'll be a laugh."

I think it's probably the post quitting haze. Every time I quit a drug I go through the 'hate and despise' said drug and fuck anyone who uses it.

So sorry smokers... you caught me at a bad time. So... fuck you and your fucking butts!

[dorknexus]

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Its like some vegans putting pictures of dead animals onto your meat.

I am a big meat eater and I love me some meat. However, if people are uncomfortable with the fact that the meat they are eating comes from dead animals (duh) then they probably shouldn't be eating meat.

I don't really give a shit if people put pictures of dead animals on my meat packages because I am fully aware of the process by which my meat came.

[supersloth]

it's still sad though

[Kilorn]

To elaborate on the great quote from Denis Leary, here's a video:

[Curtis Rutland]

Frankly, it's not going to make me quit. Cigarette prices may, but pictures of crappy lungs aren't going to.

My real problem with this whole thing is that if it's so, so bad that the FDA has to put pictures of diseased lungs and crying women on the boxes...why the hell is the product still legal to purchase and consume? $$$$$$$$$$$$ is why. Also, momentum, of course. It's been in mainstream use for literally hundreds of years. We've only known how bad it is in the past 50-100, but when you combine the historical momentum with the massive amounts of billions of dollars the industry has behind it, you have something unstoppable.

Our laws in this regard are so hypocritical. We outlaw or control almost every drug know, except for the two most profitable, which also happen to be some of the most dangerous, both in the long term, and one in the short term.