absolutely ridiculous

[kiryan]

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/qui ... &GT1=31020

Now they want to put "grotesque" pictures of tobacco related health conditions on the packages. Does my kid really need to see something the government labels "grotesque"? Do I need to see it because they decided that I shouldn't smoke?

They want to regulate the shit out of everything else, because its indecent, but they want to mandate that a product that is common carry a graphic and disgusting image. Fucking self righteous assholes.

[Todrael]

I really think you need to stop reading the news. It seems to be seriously impacting your mental health.

[ssar]

Unfort. the majority of cigga smokers have no real understanding of the entirety of the broad range of detrimental effects of lightning up each & every cancer stick, and a significant % of them are also way too inconsiderate when doing so as well.
Thus such relatively extreme measures are warranted.
Sad, it is.

The ends justifies the means here - govt's around the world should also quadruple cigga taxes and direct the majority of the revenue toward improved medical/health facitilies & public parks/playgrounds.

[Ashiwi]

Yeah, I can see them doing that when they attack all of our ills the same way. I don't see mangled bodies on the labels of Jim Beam, or tumors on every package of food with known cancer-causing additives.

[Sarvis]

Yeah, I can see them doing that when they attack all of our ills the same way. I don't see mangled bodies on the labels of Jim Beam, or tumors on every package of food with known cancer-causing additives.

Jim Beam mangles bodies?

[Ragorn]

So are they going to put pictures of Rush Limbaugh on oxycotin scrips now?

[Todrael]

Whatever you do, don't look for the Australian anti-smoking ads, which are along the same lines as this. Some seriously twisted [stuff].

[Kifle]

Yeah, I can see them doing that when they attack all of our ills the same way. I don't see mangled bodies on the labels of Jim Beam, or tumors on every package of food with known cancer-causing additives.

Jim Beam mangles bodies?

Drunk driving accidents.

Are they going to start putting pictures of morbidly obese people on every item of food with high fat content? What about clogged arteries? Isn't that still the leading cause of death with auto accidents in the top five? Cancer is up there, but the amount killed from cigarette smoke wouldn't even break the top ten if that.

The cigarette witch hunt in this country is fucking retarded. And Ssar, seriously? Seriously? You seriously believe that you're going to die if you sit next to me while I'm smoking for 20 minutes of your life at a restaurant? Seriously? You do understand that the fear of second hand smoke is an irrational fear, yes? You understand that you probably have the same likelyhood of winning the lottery, banging angelina jolie, and getting signed to a professional football team as you do receiving health issues from second hand smoke?

[kiryan]

You know I bitch about social engineering a lot and this is another example of it. The government has decided whats right for you and will do its best to make sure you do that. Whether its by making it artificially expensive, or wholesale use of propaganda, or simply emphasizing it in education for those 12 years you are required to go to public school.

Am I the only person who thinks that this is wrong? That they shouldn't be meddling in our personal, supposedly FREE lives? Sure there is good done, but should we really give them that much leash? Should Obama use federal dollars to literally hire a marketing firm to brand and advertise his health plan?

[amena wolfsnarl]

We have it here in canada, all cigarette cartons are half covered with an ad talking about the bad effects of smoking, everything from impotency to cancer. They really arent that gruesome, the worst one being the one about cancer, if i wasnt lazy id look it up and post it. I dont think this is the end of the world, its another way of reminding people of the side effects of smoking. the impotency one is kinda funny showing a limp cigarette.

You understand that you probably have the same likelyhood of winning the lottery, banging angelina jolie, and getting signed to a professional football team as you do receiving health issues from second hand smoke?

tell that to the waitress who spent 10 years working in a smoke filled restaurant and developed lung cancer, even though they dont smoke. People still die cause of second hand smoke, and thats due to someones excessive need of nicotine, why should a person have to suffer through cancer cause of someone elses addiction. Personally i think smoking should be outlawed outright, but the government makes too much money on it for them to do that. Second hand smoke is a real effect wether you want to admit it or not is up to you. Hell, they are even talking now about 3rd hand smoke (although i think this is stretching it personally) where say if you smoke as your writing a paper for a college prof you pass along the carcogens through the paper.

[Sarvis]

Hell, they are even talking now about 3rd hand smoke (although i think this is stretching it personally) where say if you smoke as your writing a paper for a college prof you pass along the carcogens through the paper.

Ok, really... who is "they" on this one? That sounds absolutely retarded...

[amena wolfsnarl]

It was talked about by a couple of my university professors last spring, i agree that it is really starting to get retraded on that level.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/01/ ... third.html

[kiryan]

I've read articles discussing the 3rd hand smoking reports. If you've ever lived with a smoker or known a person who smokes in their home or car you know that the smoke particles become embedded in the environment. In Japan, which has a very high smoking rate, they literally wipe the tar off the walls of their homes during "spring cleaning". Is it that hard to imagine that when you sit down on a couch that these particles could become airborne and then breathed in?

--

about the waitresses. What I hate about this debate is that it basically says waitresses have a right to work anywhere they want and they have a right to a smoke free environment, so you as a business owner don't have the right to have a restaurant that caters to people who do want to smoke. I really don't see why they couldn't come up with a system that allows for smoking bars.

I like to smoke when I go to bars. I never went very often before, but I don't go now at all because I like to smoke when I drink.

[Sarvis]

I've read articles discussing the 3rd hand smoking reports. If you've ever lived with a smoker or known a person who smokes in their home or car you know that the smoke particles become embedded in the environment. In Japan, which has a very high smoking rate, they literally wipe the tar off the walls of their homes during "spring cleaning". Is it that hard to imagine that when you sit down on a couch that these particles could become airborne and then breathed in?

There's a big difference between a sofa and a piece of paper...

about the waitresses. What I hate about this debate is that it basically says waitresses have a right to work anywhere they want and they have a right to a smoke free environment, so you as a business owner don't have the right to have a restaurant that caters to people who do want to smoke. I really don't see why they couldn't come up with a system that allows for smoking bars.

I like to smoke when I go to bars. I never went very often before, but I don't go now at all because I like to smoke when I drink.

There is a way to have a smoking bar. You sell cigars in it, then you're a cigar bar. One of my favorite bars does this. (They also happen to have the best selection of beer in the area.)

The fact that most bar owners don't take advantage of this loophole should tell you just how much the law is actually hurting them.

[kiryan]

I'd go to a cigar bar, but I'd question whether this was a loophole specific to your locale or a general practice. The basic principle for these smoking laws is the employees right to a smoke free work place...

Restaurants and bars largely did want the smoking bans so they had cover to kill smoking (and hopefully attract new clientel) without the worry that their existing smoking customers would go somewhere else.

--

No there really isn't a difference between smoke particles on a piece of paper and on a couch... in fact paper is probably worse because you touch it with your bare hands.

--

also, if you read that article I posted... they are not talking about the current warnings on our products today, they are talking about new graphic images like the ones in other countries. Furthermore, you read that THE MORE GRUESOME THE IMAGE, THE MORE POWERFUL THE ANTI SMOKING EFFECT. They want the most powerful effect possible, I hope they use some judgement and take truly grotesque images off the table.

[Sarvis]

I'd go to a cigar bar, but I'd question whether this was a loophole specific to your locale or a general practice. The basic principle for these smoking laws is the employees right to a smoke free work place...

I believe most of the bans are a statewide law, so it will depend on the state... what's your point? That states shouldn't have the right to set laws as they see fit?

Restaurants and bars largely did want the smoking bans so they had cover to kill smoking (and hopefully attract new clientel) without the worry that their existing smoking customers would go somewhere else.

So wait, were the rights of the bar owners being trampled or were they enabling bar owners to do what they really wanted? I'm confused.

Well, one of us is.

No there really isn't a difference between smoke particles on a piece of paper and on a couch... in fact paper is probably worse because you touch it with your bare hands.

Try cleaning dust off of a couch vs. a piece of paper and then get back to me. Also, tobacco doesn't absorb through the skin or people wouldn't smoke/chew it. (Well, they wouldn't _just_ smoke/chew it anyway)

also, if you read that article I posted... they are not talking about the current warnings on our products today, they are talking about new graphic images like the ones in other countries. Furthermore, you read that THE MORE GRUESOME THE IMAGE, THE MORE POWERFUL THE ANTI SMOKING EFFECT. They want the most powerful effect possible, I hope they use some judgement and take truly grotesque images off the table.

Nothing worse than your kids have seen on 4chan, I'm sure.

The generation growing up now will likely be completely un-shockable.

[kiryan]

A lot of bans are statewide, many are also city specific. You made the point that no one is using the cigar loophole, mine is that I'm not sure that its available everywhere (or anywhere other than your state).

No, states do not have the right to set laws as they see fit. They must respect your rights that are guaranteed under the constitution. Smoking in public does not seem to be a constitutionally guaranteed right... but I still get a bit antsy that its legal for you to smoke... but just not in a restaurant anywhere... soon becoming in an enclosed space like your car when there is a minor... ect... We are getting a little too controlling in my opinion with what you can do where and when...

---

Its both... economic reality is that smoking restaurant owners by far in large were happy with smoking bans because they could ban smoking without worry of losing their smoking customers... but yes the rights of restaurant owners was trampled in that they could no longer run a business where their employees were ok with smoking and their customers. Governments have almost literally decided over the past 10 years that you can't smoke in public.

---

umm... when you get stuff on your hand it easily ends up in your body through your mouth. I rub my eyes and my nose all the time. I eat without watshing my hand (i do wash after using the toilet though!). Also, nicotine and lots of chemicals can be absorbed through the skin. Smoke particles are not like dust. They are literally "sticky" due to their jagged structures. I lived in Japan, I know what 3rd hand smoke is. I don't know how bad it is for you, but it certainly does exist.

[Botef]

I agree with some of your views herein Kiryan, but come on now...The 'grotesque' pictures your referring to are hardly that. Pictures of a cancerous lung hardly qualify as 'grotesque' in my mind any more so than posters with pictures of rotten teeth you see at the dentist. This approach to stopping smoking might be silly but come on, the whole 'think of the children' argument here is pretty daft - especially since tobacco products are intended for adults.

[Ashiwi]

Have you ever looked at the chemicals put into the process of creating paper? You touch that stuff every day!

And microwaving your food in plastic??? Are people insane?!?

The toxins created from cooking with grease are known to be cancer-causing. Household cleaners are cancer-causing. Pesticides sprayed on grown-for-market produce are cancer-causing. There's a toxic brown haze that hovers over any large city in the US, which carries a wide variety of cancer-causing agents.

Sunlight is cancer-causing.

There's mercury in our rivers and streams, and in our fish. There's deadly toxins leeching into the air we breath from manufacturing facilities in every state. Stories about green ooze bubbling up out of the ground near playgrounds and schools pop up on the news almost weekly. Drunk drivers are vying with cell phone users for the dubious honor of beng the "Stupidest and Deadliest Drivers." McDonald's Quarter Pounders cause untold numbers of heart attacks and strokes every year.

And yet cigarettes take the award for "Most Evil Perpetrated" year after year. It makes no sense.

There should be a law that requires McDonald's to only use actors who are a minimum of 100 pounds overweight in their commercials.

[kiryan]

Botef, really there are two issues here. Decency and Government propaganda.

I don't think they should be going out of their way to "shock" people into quitting smoking using grotesque images. First of all its not going to work, people are just going to get cigarette cases and transfer their smokes to a case, but more importantly, there is something inherently wrong when government is advocating for putting self described "grotesque" images on common products.

You want to educate fine, but this isn't education, this is shock tactics. Maybe we should subject middle schoolers to graphic depictions of sexually transmitted diseases. You know pictures of a crusted up scabbed over vagina dripping yellow puss or a penis covered in black sores oozing pus. Expose high schoolers to grotesque pictures of people dieing in car accidents from drunk driving or not wearing their seat belts. Fuck maybe we should put them up on billboards.

I live in Montana now which has had a very high incidence of Meth abuse over the past decade. I am regularly subjected to billboards on the freeway and in town showing things like razor blades in a sink with coagulated blood spots with the subtitle "You never thought you'd try to cut your own face off". or pictures of a just absoltely disgusting public toilet / stall with the caption "You never thought you'd lose your virginity here".

"The Project's print advertising, featured in high school newspapers and on billboards across Montana, reveal the severe physical and psychological impacts associated with Meth use. Our newest campaign shows the devastating impact Meth has on the friends and family of Meth users. "

I have actually seen these in town, where I drive by them daily... warning these are just disgusting:
http://www.montanameth.org/ads/run/Pri_lipstick.jpg
http://www.montanameth.org/ads/run/Pri_sink.jpg
http://www.montanameth.org/ads/run/Pri_bathroom.jpg

I haven't seen these, but they are from the same site with others I have:
http://www.montanameth.org/ads/run/Sex.jpg
http://www.montanameth.org/ads/run/Bugs.jpg


Now seriously, is this what our tax dollars should be paying for? Is this how we want to "educate" and address societal problems? Through disgusting graphic depictions? You know damn well this is the kind of "grotesque" images they'd love to put on cigarettes.