Smokers to face picture warnings

[Michele]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6967160.stm

Images highlighting the dangers of smoking will be printed on all tobacco products sold in the UK by the end of 2009, under regulations being set out.

Are the proposed images for cigarette packs too much? Or is it something that needs to be done? Do you think this will deter people from smoking?

[abcNKH]

I don't think it will deter anyone...

[Clio]

Great idea but as NKH said it won't help as many as it needs to. If the "smoking can decrease your sperm count" warnings in big bold lettering don't work, nothing will.

[Shannie-Poo]

I am pretty sure that people out there are aware that smoking is bad for them. No smoker can be THAT clueless, "Cigarettes are bad for me?"

Picture warnings is ridiculous. Its all about common sense and apparantly that is something we have lost along the way.

Next we will have picture warnings on our big macs and fries. Because you know I always get a big mac when I am on a health kick. :howling:

[Terrell]

Great idea but as NKH said it won't help as many as it needs to. If the "smoking can decrease your sperm count" warnings in big bold lettering don't work, nothing will.

Good point though any guy who didn't want children would see a reduction of sperm count as a GOOD thing. Now if they said it would cause impotence, that might work a bit better. I'm reminded of Bill Maher once saying that he quit smoking because he heard it could cause things down there not to rise to the occasion.

[Raven]

a picture is worth a thousand words, I suppose.

that combined with the lack of reading these days...

but as others have said, I can't imagine their is a single person left who does NOT realize smoking is bad for them :P

[Demona]

Good point though any guy who didn't want children would see a reduction of sperm count as a GOOD thing. Now if they said it would cause impotence, that might work a bit better. I'm reminded of Bill Maher once saying that he quit smoking because he heard it could cause things down there not to rise to the occasion.

There's about 10 different written warnings which are randomly spread across cigarette packages: one of the others is 'smoking causes impotence'. There are female specific warnings as well.

[Demona]

If smokers had common sense they wouldn't be smoking in the first place. Sad to say, shock tactics and creating an emotional response do get people to think twice where the purely intellectual knowledge doesn't get them to change their habits.

[Diva]

Perhaps the pictures should be of scary famous people smoking? A picture of Victoria Beckham or Nicole Richie dangling off the end of a cancer stick should do the trick. Scare anyone into quitting faster than Richard Simmons on acid. :eek:

[tuesdaysgirl]

I don't smoke so maybe I don't realy understand smokers butttt.....my husband does smoke. When cigs went up to $3.00 a pak he said he would quit. They are now almost $5.00 a pac and he hasn't quit smoking. He now has a smokers cough every day of his life but he hasn't quit smoking. He knows the dangers and I don't think pictures will make one little bit of difference. He will look at that and not quit smoking.

I hope it will affect someone and cause them to stop.

[Clio]

I don't smoke so maybe I don't realy understand smokers butttt.....my husband does smoke. When cigs went up to $3.00 a pak he said he would quit. They are now almost $5.00 a pac and he hasn't quit smoking. He now has a smokers cough every day of his life but he hasn't quit smoking. He knows the dangers and I don't think pictures will make one little bit of difference. He will look at that and not quit smoking.

I hope it will affect someone and cause them to stop.


$5 for 20. I must go check what moving to America on a permanent basis entails. They're the equivelant of $10 in ireland, $12 in London. Pooh.

[Sarlu]

Australia already has these pictures on all cigarette packets and has done for a while. Most people either buy those little plastic containers and put the smokes in those, or just dont mind the pics so much. Personally, I think a good way to get more people to quit is to lower the price of patches etc. Here, its cheaper to smoke than to quit. I have quit twice cold turkey and its bloody hard. Possible, but very hard. Frankly, Im not so sure people shouldnt be put in hospital half the time for it the withdrawals can be so bad. Anyways..lol.

[justGina]

Oh God, I so did not want to think about Bill Maher's little Bill rising to the occasion. :cry:

[ByoQemFizzix]

Perhaps governments should actually think of *banning* tobacco fullstop... of course then they'd lose an easy source of tax revenue and they wouldn't want that now would they? :rolleyes2

Actually... Most smokers seem to start when they're young (ie underage). Perhaps the law should actually come down hard on the adults that allow these children access to tobacco (like it's supposed to).

Let's start with Jade Jagger... there are pictures of her in the papers this week with her 15 year old daughter who is smoking cigarettes (and in the picture she obviously doesn't give a damn). Jade obviously feels that she's too "celebrity" to be prosecuted and is a piss-poor excuse for a responsible mother imo...

And hit the shopowners who knowingly sell tobacco to obviously-underage smokers where it hurts - take away their liberty and their businesses and their liberty. The latter should go for adults who buy tobacco for underage smokers too.

[justGina]

I heard an asshole the other day say "America was built on tobacco." :wtf2: Uh, ok. Even if it was, they didn't know then how bad it is. :lol:

Time to ban the shit altogether. :nod:

[Book Wizard]

Banning tobacco will never happen. The tabacco industry is too strong and has too much money. If you will remember history, banning alcohol didn't work. It just made people like Al Capone rich.

[Terrell]

Banning tobacco will never happen. The tabacco industry is too strong and has too much money. If you will remember history, banning alcohol didn't work. It just made people like Al Capone rich.

I'm thinking the same thing. Al Capone wasn't the only person to get rich off of Prohibition. Best I think that the government can do on this, is require a license to sell tobacco, (assuming that they don't already) and take the licenses away from those businesses who knowingly sell to minors.

If there is to be prosecution for selling to underage it should probably be a misdeamenor (Class 1) IMO, at least for first offenses. As to who is actually prosecuted, it should be the person who is the offender, not his boss unless it can be shown that the boss is complicit. I do NOT support asset forfeiture in these cases though. Habitual offenders however could get harsher penalties.

[justGina]

The gubmint should seize all of Big Tobacco's money and use it for education and social programs. :nod: :clap:

[Terrell]

The gubmint should seize all of Big Tobacco's money and use it for education and social programs. :nod: :clap:

How is that not a form of armed robbery?

[justGina]

Uh...eminent domain? :paranoid:

[justGina]

Our mayor has come under fire for taking a sledgehammer to a dilapidated home that he believed to be a crack house. I thought it was great. :lol: