Big Tobacco Loses 11-Year Fight, Forced To Broadcast 'Dangers of Smoking' Ads (nbcnews.com) 274
An anonymous reader quotes NBC News:
Smoking kills 1,200 people a day. The tobacco companies worked to make them as addictive as possible. There is no such thing as a safer cigarette. Ads with these statements hit the major television networks and newspapers this weekend, but they are not being placed by the American Cancer Society or other health groups. They're being placed by major tobacco companies, under the orders of the federal courts. "The ads will finally run after 11 years of appeals by the tobacco companies aimed at delaying and weakening them," the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, National African American Tobacco Prevention Network and the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund said in a joint statement.
"It's a pretty significant moment," the American Cancer Society's Cliff Douglas said. "This is the first time they have had to âfess up and tell the whole truth." The Justice Department started its racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco companies in 1999, seeking to force them to make up for decades of deception. Federal district judge Gladys Kessler ruled in 2006 that they'd have to pay for and place the ads, but the companies kept tying things up with appeals. "Employing the highest paid lawyers in America, the tobacco companies used every tool at their disposal to delay and complicate this litigation to avoid their day of reckoning," Douglas added.
The ads will inform Americans TV viewers that "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined," according to one of the ads." Besides $170 billion every year in medical costs -- plus another $156 billion in lost productivity -- roughly one in five deaths in America are smoking-related, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with cigarettes killing 480,000 Americans every year.
"It's a pretty significant moment," the American Cancer Society's Cliff Douglas said. "This is the first time they have had to âfess up and tell the whole truth." The Justice Department started its racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco companies in 1999, seeking to force them to make up for decades of deception. Federal district judge Gladys Kessler ruled in 2006 that they'd have to pay for and place the ads, but the companies kept tying things up with appeals. "Employing the highest paid lawyers in America, the tobacco companies used every tool at their disposal to delay and complicate this litigation to avoid their day of reckoning," Douglas added.
The ads will inform Americans TV viewers that "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined," according to one of the ads." Besides $170 billion every year in medical costs -- plus another $156 billion in lost productivity -- roughly one in five deaths in America are smoking-related, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with cigarettes killing 480,000 Americans every year.
Could have done without the productivity remark (Score:2, Insightful)
It's enough that we understand the cost of smoking in terms of human lives. We don't need to know how much money could have been made exploiting them.
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We don't need to know how much money could have been made exploiting them.
Why not? It's the only thing the big game capitalist understands. The world is a ledger. You gotta play the numbers game. To them, everything else is gibberish.
Re:Could have done without the productivity remark (Score:5, Interesting)
Putting things in financial terms is also important when deciding how to allocate limited resources. As a society should we invest more in anti-smoking ads, or highway guardrails? The only way to make rational decisions is to look at the cost and the quality-life-years added. We currently make some poor decisions, such as spending billions on extending the lives of geriatric patients for a few more miserable months, when that money would be far better spent on something like prenatal nutrition.
For smokers, TFS is only giving one side of the financial ledger. Sure, productivity is lost when someone gets lung cancer in the prime of their life. But on the other side of the ledger, we save a fortune on Social Security and Medicare payments when elderly smokers die years earlier. It isn't clear that smoking is a net loss to society.
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Seemingly, prescription opiates, methamphetamines, and cheap, easily available fast food also play right into the hands of the net profit of society.
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Well said.
Seemingly, prescription opiates, methamphetamines, and cheap, easily available fast food also play right into the hands of the net profit of society.
Hopefully, we'll find something to replace opioids for pain management. Because they really only work for short term use. The tolerance effect kicks in quickly, and next thing you know, you are taking an unhealthy anmount. Not to mention people taking Vicodin end up taking a big dose of Acetominiphen.
But all of my old Hockey injuries are coming back to haunt me, I can only spend so much time in the hot tub spa, and I'm a bit concerned for the future.
Re:Could have done without the productivity remark (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah I know it's fashionable to hate on opiates, but please know what you're talking about instead of repeating what the DEA and its mouthpiece the CDC are saying that runs counter to medical knowledge.
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Yeah I know it's fashionable to hate on opiates, but please know what you're talking about instead of repeating what the DEA and its mouthpiece the CDC are saying that runs counter to medical knowledge.
I think that is because people dont understand what an opiate actually is.
Opiates (and opioids, to include synthetic drugs) are quite safe and effective pain killers at low dosages. The problem we have is that when most people hear "opiate" they instantly think heroin where as they include a lot of safe drugs like codeine. Here in the UK you can buy codeine pain killers up to 12.5mg, usually combined with ibuprofen or paracetamol over the counter. However there have been some scare campaigns over the use
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I think that is because people dont understand what an opiate actually is. Opiates (and opioids, to include synthetic drugs) are quite safe and effective pain killers at low dosages.
So what you are saying is that the same safe effective "small dose" is going to be just as effective forever?
Seriously, You are challenged to provide the citation to show that is true. Perhaps I am way off base, but tolerence is real, and I'm awating your data that says that it isn't.
And I'm not a person who hears "opiate" and instantly thinks heroin.
Why those folks are just doing the opposite of you, who hears someone mentioning issues with opiates and instanly thinks they are instantly thinkin
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You can safely take enough opiates in a day to kill a theater full of people with little ill effect.
You do realize that this makes no sense at all.
It's also factually incorrect to assert they work in only the short term.
Take it up with these folks. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov] Depending of course on the person, you can reach your tolerance quickly. Regardless, I reach mine very quickly. Last time I had to take opioids (Broken Ankle) I reached my limit while still in the hospital, to the point where I refused to take any more. I took a lot of crap from the nurses eventually a doctor coming to give me hell because I refused to use that damn machine to self administer. And
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Please, feel free to elaborate with specifics. I'll grab my popcorn while you try and explain how a theater full of dead people are doing it wrong.
If you're referring to the specific incident where a theater full of people *did* die from opiates, they had no tolerance and first responders were not told the chemical agent used, therefore did not have enough naloxone on hand. But what I was really talking about was the development of tolerance. You can take thousands of milligrams of something like morphine or oxycodone per day (where under 100mg is potentially lethal with no tolerance), and still be acting so normal nobody could even guess you were on
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You can safely take enough opiates in a day to kill a theater full of people with little ill effect.
Please, feel free to elaborate with specifics. I'll grab my popcorn while you try and explain how a theater full of dead people are doing it wrong.
It's also warmer down south than it is in the winter 8^)
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Brother, I feel you. 30-plus years of martial arts and I feel every one. You aren't going to want to hear this, but tai chi and qi gong have been the things to help me. I got talked into some acupuncture back in 2012, and it also helped me, but five years later, some of the pain is inching back. I think I need a tune up.
I don't particularly believe that acupuncture works, except for the fact that acupuncture worked
Re:Could have done without the productivity remark (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, productivity is lost when someone gets lung cancer in the prime of their life. But on the other side of the ledger, we save a fortune on Social Security and Medicare payments when elderly smokers die years earlier. It isn't clear that smoking is a net loss to society.
Exactly. And if a morbidly obese person suffers a massive heart attack and dies in 5 minutes, it saves money as well.
In the age of illusional denial, there are a huge number of people who seem to thing that if we only do X, Y, and Z, and not do A, B, and C, then we'll live forever or at worse, die peacefully in our sleep at the age of 180. This is why I laugh every time I her how much a smoker cost society. And how little "healthy habit people" cost to society/
Meanwhile my mother died at 80 of a massive heart attack, my father at 86 and my father in law at 85, and my step mother in law at 70 of pancreatic cancer. They hardly cost society anything. They did have one thing in common - they smoked cigarettes.
Meanwhile, my mother in law did everything right. She didn't smoke or drink, exercised regularly, and did it all right. She spent the last ten years in a nursing home, and in the final year of her life at 78, racked up over 600 thousand dollars in medical bills. Overall, for her it cost over a million dollars to die. 10 years of it not knowing who she was.
I suspect a lot of these "Fame!, I'm gonna live forever!" people are in for a nasty shock when they find out that the only thing thay are going to be is the healthiest person in the graveyard.
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My apartment complex recently banned smoking inside apartments. The rationale was that the smoke could travel through electrical outlets endangering other residents' clean air. I don't know whether they've bought into the BS or whether there's some other actual motive. The Truth ads even make more sense than second-hand smoke through electrical outlets.
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Are you a renter?
Motive is cost. Cleaning a smoky apartment is difficult, plus it needs painting, HVAC filters, flooring, etc more often.
Re:Big Tobacco is a favorite whipping post of soph (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Big Tobacco is a favorite whipping post of soph (Score:5, Informative)
Nah, they're lying to you. It's because that smoker stink lasts forever in an apartment. You can paint, change the carpets, and that smell is still noticeable.
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Those ads are actually paid for with tobacco settlement money. And they have always had final say about what goes in them. That's why they're lame.
Follow the money (Score:3, Insightful)
And who makes more money from tobacco sales than anyone, including the tobacco companies themselves??? That's right, friends. The government.
Follow the facile Libertarian logic (Score:4, Insightful)
So what would you prefer - Prohibition? That's always been a disaster when tried, creating black markets, crime, and making millions of people convicts for non-violent drug use. Forcing tobacco companies to break up and cease operations? You'd have Rand rolling in her grave.
Cigarrette taxes are a market-based approach (aren't you guys supposed to love that shit?) to discourage people from smoking and make users pay for (some) of the immense medical costs they'll be generating for themselves and non-smoker's close by them.
So - what should be done instead of taxes?
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And who makes more money from tobacco sales than anyone, including the tobacco companies themselves??? That's right, friends. The government.
So... They're making smoking less appealing and less affordable. What evil bastards they are.
Yep, I quit smoking in 2000 because John Howard (then Australia's Prime Minister) put up the tax.
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Explain to me again the part where we're stuck between voting against kodos and kang because the political parties know damn well we can't vote out every politician we hate?
We as a nation might *collectively* deserve our leaders, but don't fracking tell us that we have an impressive menu where we only get to avoid the lesser of two evils.
If american voters stood up and cared enough to make their votes matter it would be great.
Not only though does the mass media keep them sheepified, but the electoral proces
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I don't think the government getting more revenue than the tobacco companies (if true) is a bad thing overall. The voters have no love lost for the tobacco companies, and the money the government gets does go back to medical research. It's not like this was done against the will of the voters.
Hopefully (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully to eventually be followed up by advertisements by the sugar industry reporting the severe risks to health posed by their product. Honestly, if I had any kind of power at all, Big Tobacco and Big Sugar's leading figures would be defendants in crimes against humanity trials. They've killed more people than the Nazis, and with as much planning and strategy as the Third Reich.
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Funny to see an asshole talk about Nazism in the same breath as he'd use Big Government as a weapon and would impose his "good justice" against people's freewill.
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In Govt vs corporations, you should root for the underdog the government.
Now a days corporations are claiming all the rights meant for individuals. Freedom of speeh, money = speech, lobbying the government is exercise of free speech. If you are not able to see the how corrupt it has become you are part of the problem.
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In other words: what if the underdog is the underdog for a reason? What if the underdog completely deserves it?
Why not just simply stand for what's right regardless of how many people are for it or against it?
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Tobacco managed to stall until broadcast TV has begun to dwindle into irrelevance... the fight with big Sugar will last much longer.
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with as much planning and strategy as the Third Reich.
Except Tobacco and Sugar target money, not people. Indirect killing is much less taken into consideration in our societies.
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Hopefully to eventually be followed up by advertisements by the sugar industry reporting the severe risks to health posed by their product. Honestly, if I had any kind of power at all, Big Tobacco and Big Sugar's leading figures would be defendants in crimes against humanity trials. They've killed more people than the Nazis, and with as much planning and strategy as the Third Reich.
You do know that this puritanical streak demand that if we hunted down and killed every manufacturer seller and user of evil tobacco, we'd just have to find another hate target.
So much more of this is just based on the human color aspect of needing to hate the other. Your proof of that by turning "Big Tobacco" and "Big Sugar" into Nazi's confirms this.
So let's say we eradicate all tobacco, with some manner of engineered virus, made it a capital crime to consume sugar.
What's next on your list?
Re:Hopefully (Score:4, Insightful)
You're conveniently forgetting that both the tobacco cartel and (it seems) the sugar sellers seem to have willfully covered up evidence that their products are harmful.
If I ran a restaurant and served you poison, particularly while claiming the food was perfectly safe and even good for you, would you just say "buyer beware" and go about your business?
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You're conveniently forgetting that both the tobacco cartel and (it seems) the sugar sellers seem to have willfully covered up evidence that their products are harmful.
If I ran a restaurant and served you poison, particularly while claiming the food was perfectly safe and even good for you, would you just say "buyer beware" and go about your business?
I forget nothing. It doesn't take a genius to figure out for yourself the effects of either tobacco or sugar. I had a book from the 1850's that outlines every single effect of tobacco, from emphysema , cancer - they called it "consumption" back in the day, and the cancer of the lips.
A person who way overconsumes sugar also has some pretty obvious physical manifestations.
If you need a court to teach you your medical or science knowledge, you are more part of a problem than a solution. If advertisements
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Nazi's
Know difference between grammar Nazis and regular Nazi's? Grammar Nazis know how to use apostrophes. /:=|
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Nazi's
Know difference between grammar Nazis and regular Nazi's? Grammar Nazis know how to use apostrophes. /:=|
You'll have to fiogive me, I'm not as experienced in claiming people are that as you are.
You usually make decent arguments. If you think that comparing other groups tto Nazis that don't identify as such, you have departed from that. Which is kind of sad.
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Your proof of that by turning "Big Tobacco" and "Big Sugar" into Nazi's confirms this.
Maybe I'm out of touch with modern parlance, but I thought that in English simply comparing two things does not imply that they are the same thing. For example, if I say "coffee contains more caffeine than orange juice", I'm trying to imply that coffee /is/ orange juice.
I'm starting to wonder if this has changed in some English speaking parts of the world. Saw the same thing with recent discussion about the 1930s animation style in the video game Cuphead - some people seemed to think that merely talking abo
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Your proof of that by turning "Big Tobacco" and "Big Sugar" into Nazi's confirms this.
Maybe I'm out of touch with modern parlance, but I thought that in English simply comparing two things does not imply that they are the same thing. For example, if I say "coffee contains more caffeine than orange juice", I'm trying to imply that coffee /is/ orange juice.
You'll note that he also claimed that they used Nazi tactics.
The real problem is that once you compare the group who killed millions of civilians, who started a World War that for a short while actually decreased the population of the world, and start comparing them at all to anyone else or any other group that doesn't self identify as such, you are messing up your argument pretty badly. That's pretty simple
Tobacco industry lawyers and their tactics, lately adopted by AGW denialists are horrible, and
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I thought his basic point that their actions had resulted in many millions of premature deaths was not an exaggeration. Of course how premature those deaths were is up for debate.
As for "feminazi", the different is that feminists didn't do anything to cause large numbers of deaths.
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That's how capitalism is designed... Personal benefit at any cost.
The problem as always is a lack of education, if people were better informed they wouldn't fall for the marketing.
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Oh! I'm sorry. Were all those people forced to smoke tobacco and drink gallons of Coke/Pepsi??
Are you really, truly that unfamiliar with the concept of addiction?
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Well before sugar the bogeyman was salt, and before that fat...
When they reduce the fat and salt, the food ends up tasting like crap so they add more things (including sugar) to compensate. Now there is a push to remove sugar too, so we'll no doubt end up with something much worse... The more they've been messing with our foods under the guise of making it healthier, the more people have been becoming obese.
Sugar, salt and fat occurs naturally in food, and we require some quantities of each. Instead of mess
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Our bodies require a certain intake of sugars, it's excessive quantities which are bad...
We don't really need any alcohol, although there have been claims that moderate consumption of red wine etc can be beneficial, but excess consumption of alcohol is clearly detrimental.
We don't require any intake of tobacco whatsoever, and are much better off without it. Certainly our bodies are not designed to inhale fumes from something being burned.
Huge middle finger to the tobacco companies (Score:2)
those ads dont work (Score:2)
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i hope so. i really want the price to drop to 1992 levels because i'm down to 1 pack a day because they're too damn expensive today.
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those ads do nothing but encourage kids to smoke as a middle finger to the establishment its a proven fact.
Indeed. Advertisements emphasizing the health hazards of smoking don't work well. But other ads do work well. Since the initial settlement in 1998, the biggest drop in smoking occurred in California, where instead of emphasizing health hazards, the state government tried to make smoking look "uncool", comparing it to breathing farts, and pointing out that it can cause impotence. Today, the smoking rate in California is 15%, compared to 30% in Kentucky, and 21% nationally.
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the most successful anti drug ad ever was the simple egg and frying pan
You have got to be kidding. We used to make fun of that one in particular: "Who wants to eat raw eggs? Pass the bong, dude."
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I think I already demonstrated that the egg/frying pan ad was not especially successful.
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French did a nice ad
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actuali... [lefigaro.fr]
an anti-smoking group launched a poster campaign which links the use of tobacco by teenagers, both male and female, to the performing of oral sex on an older man.
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Since the initial settlement in 1998, the biggest drop in smoking occurred in California, where instead of emphasizing health hazards, the state government tried to make smoking look "uncool", comparing it to breathing farts, and pointing out that it can cause impotence. Today, the smoking rate in California is 15%, compared to 30% in Kentucky, and 21% nationally.
Oh, we here in the uncivilized east get those ads as well.
There is a problem. So many of them are what th eboys down at the shop call "Fucking Lies". Some dude dies of Second hand smoke, people getting their limbs amputated because they smoked. Guy has a heart attack at 30 because - you guessed it, he smoked, and the woman with the baby in the incubator because - well you get the picture.
The problems with lying to young people is they grow up and rebel against them.
I started smoking at 13 years o
This doesn't make any sense (Score:2)
This is like if there's a guy who goes out every day and just shoots people on the subway and instead of putting him away you run ads saying that he's dangerous.
Re:This doesn't make any sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Their existing and past attempts at prohibition have worked out really well!
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Well, there hasn't been a ban at all, until this one:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indep... [aljazeera.com]
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I don't understand why they don't just make cigarette manufacturing illegal. This is like if there's a guy who goes out every day and just shoots people on the subway and instead of putting him away you run ads saying that he's dangerous.
Because they have juicy taxes on the guy. Can't give up juicy taxes.
[Willy Wonka]No, please, stop ... [/Willy Wonka]
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I don't understand why they don't just make cigarette manufacturing illegal.
Prohibition word so well, except when it makes things worse. Imagine the drug traffic from South America to the US. Now imagine Canadians smuggling whiskey or whisky to avoid the argument.
As well, the age of prohibition was teh biggest and best enabler and boost to organized crime ever.
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Can you imagine the difficulty when you have millions of addicts who need a fix? It will make alcohol's prohibition or the war on drugs look like uncontested victories for the government.
Missed opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a shame the verdict wasn't that the tobacco companies had to put up an equal anti-smoking advertisement for every advert they use to sell their products.
If they pay for a full-page advert in a magazine? Then they need to pay for a second full-page advert three pages later. Huge-ass billboard on the side of the highway? An equally large billboard by the next exit. Put a sign in store window saying your product is sold here ? There better be an equally large sign right next to it. Paying to have your product prominently featured in a film? Pay for that actress who is painfully suffering from smoking-induced lung-cancer in the next scene.
That way the more the tobacco industry advertises FOR their products, the more they advertise AGAINST their products too. Right now it's pretty much a one-shot deal whose effects will be gone almost as soon as the adverts are in the paper.
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Really, they ought to just have to devote 50% of any advertisement to this material. Not another billboard, the same billboard. Half the surface of the cigarette pack. Half of any print advertisement. Half of any television ad. Etc, etc.
they can hardly advertise at all these days (Score:2)
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You do realize, I hope -- that tobacco companies would simply stop advertising in any traditional form if such a ruling was passed. Why spend money running an ad for your product if you're legally required to run another to cancel it out each time? Your best move is to save all those ad dollars and promote the product in a more underground, grass-roots fashion.
It's technically not buying advertising to get a bunch of people to promote the product for you on social media, for example.
Speech you don't like is hard to regulate (Score:2)
Or paying people in entertainment to be seen either smoking or at least holding cigarettes, things that can subtly suggest smoking is okay or even 'cool' to do. They already do this in movies (likely with the cooperation of the tobacco companies) so they can do more of it. Traditional TV ads for smoking stopped airing years ago, not because they were forced off but because they're not needed.
Advertising inside of something else (such as entertainment products) is quite effective and used for other propagand
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Most places have banned tobacco advertising completely. That's why Formula 1 cars are not covered in Marlboro logos any more. In addition they often have to print warnings on the labels, stuff like "smoking causes impotence" or photos of diseased lungs.
Tobacco is a somewhat unique product. Highly addictive and if it were invented today would surely never be allowed to go on sale, because most people recognize that allowing businesses to get people addicted to their products is not a good idea. But because p
Now sue the tobacco company executives (Score:2)
who filibustered and so helped cause the death of 5 million odd who died since the 2006 ruling. Let the personally pay compensation to their relatives.
This will not, of course, happen — which is a pity because if they were sued, lost their houses, etc, then it might make other executives think twice before acting irresponsibly — in the hope of making a quick buck.
OK: I do realise that many of those who died since 2006 did so because of damage sustained before then, but there are plenty who's hea
those costs have no meaning... (Score:2, Informative)
Lost productivity... only counts if you don't have enough people to fill the jobs of those who died early.
Health care costs... of a mostly private healthcare system?
How much money is raised from tobacco taxes? In 2010 federal taxes bought in $8.8b, in 2010 state taxes bought in $24b
2 minutes of googling didn't get me any more recent figures.
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Who cares if vampires suck your blood.
Sure, you are too sick to work and your company must train a replacement.
Sure, you couldn't be there for your kids, and they started their lives with an handicap.
But still some say there was no cost for companies and no cost for society.
Ignorance is bliss, and willful ignorance will make you rich.
sure they do (Score:2)
Do you want someone to work and consume until they're 67 and retire, or get lung cancer at 57, spend a few hundred thousand to a million in cancer treatments, and then live on disability until they die? Lot of lost productivity there.
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What's cheaper: public housing and food stamps or chemo treatments? How about chemo treatments plus treatment medication that costs as much as a month's worth of public housing plus food stamps per dose - or even much more? [fool.com]
And I'm sure you cried a big tear in history class for all the slave driver
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weed (Score:2)
I really don't get this? (Score:2)
I mean I understand that cigarettes have been unmasked as truly bad for you and that as a result of the cigarette company's covering up the health hazards for so long they've been forced to do these ads. However if they are now being forced to admit how bad cigarettes are for anyone who smokes doesn't that open them up to additional liability for anyone who can't quite who develops lung cancer?
Free Publicity (Score:2)
The thing about it I do not like is, I feel like it's free publicity for tobacco companies.
I mean at this point everyone knows smoking is bad, and in what ways. So all added media exposure can do is to make younger people think it might be cool to take risks and annoy people by picking up smoking.
I think it's funny that society is so down on cigarettes now as so many frequently push to allow everyone to smoke other substances - I think it's a great idea to legalize ALL dugs, but to me that comes along with
Interesting side story... (Score:2)
When the TV show 'Mad Men' was all the rage they interviewed real ad men from that era. He stated, yes there was a lot of smoking back the. But the cigarette company's parties were particularly interesting.
The CEO husbands would have have cigars. The wives were the ones with the cigarettes...and they were never lit.
Anti-smoking Ads are just Cigarette Commercials (Score:2)
As a former smoker, nothing drives me towards wanting to smoke another cigarette than seeing an anti-smoking ad.
Why? Because the advertisements are pandering. I absolutely HATE having some nanny wag a finger at me. I quit because smoking made going to the gym difficult, not because of some stupid advertisement.
Antismoking ads are as effective as regular smoking ads because all I want to do is light up to spite these idiots.
Just let smoking tobacco fade into obscurity the same way opium has.
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Personal responsibility (Score:2)
Harm of cigarettes has been well known for long time and there are tons of safer methods [wikipedia.org] to get Nicotine into your body if you like or need the effects. Companies that supply a product that you willingly buy should not be forced to advertise against it.
Guess who uses the same PR people... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you guessed the fossil fuel industry and their Global Warming denier shills, you'd be correct.
"Big Oil created the organized apparatus of doubt...It used the same playbook of misinformation, obfuscation, and research laundered through front groups to attack science and sow uncertainty on lead, on smog, and in the early debates on climate change. Big Tobacco used and refined that playbook for decades in its fight to keep us smoking â" just as Big Oil is using it now, again, to keep us burning fossil fuels.â
http://www.ciel.org/news/oil-tobacco-denial-playbook/
Putinista downmodding in three, two, one...
Death by Design (Score:3)
"More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined,"
Makes you wonder why in the FUCK it's a legal product, doesn't it? (answer below)
"$170 billion every year in medical costs..."
Costs? You mean profit, as in one of the main reasons cigarettes are still a legal product. Greed benefits from this.
"$156 billion in lost productivity"
Completely irrelevant due to Greed.
"...cigarettes killing 480,000 Americans every year.
We've carved this planet up into countries, and each one has a government that holds the very real responsibility of resource management. Manufacturing death is a component of that responsibility, which is the other main reason cigarettes are still a legal product.
Cigarettes are highly profitable from usage to treatment AND they create deaths. Sadly for the government, this is a win-win product.
If cigs are that deadly... (Score:2)
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...why are they still sold? I know it is about money and tax revenue, but the overall cost likely does not outweigh these 'benefits'. Make cigs illegal and stop selling them or at least quadrupel the tax on them and add a 5$ deposit for each cigarette butt, package, and lighter. That way the world will be much cleaner
TFS stated that $170 billion a year in medical costs are created, which is also known as profits. That is one of the main reasons cigarettes are still legal.
We've carved this planet up into countries, and each one has a government that holds the very real responsibility of resource management. Manufacturing death is a component of that responsibility, which is the other main reason cigarettes are still a legal product.
Cigarettes are highly profitable from usage to treatment AND they create deaths. Sadly f
Weird ruling (Score:2)
Force tobacco companies to broadcast ads against themselves on their own expense, that's weird. They will obviously attempt to make the ads as unimpactful as possible, maybe even do a bit of reverse psychology. Smoking kills... do you fear death? Smoking is addictive... to those who lack willpower. There is no such thing as a safe cigarette... nothing is safe in this world, do you want to stop living?
Why not fine them instead and let the government broadcast its own ads with the money.
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Agreed, since probably the late 60's you'd have to have lived under a rock your whole life not to know smoking is bad, very bad. In other news, shooting heroin, along with most other recreational drugs is bad for you too. The unbelievable fact is that your health insurance rates are only increased for smoking.
Re:Good News for Big Tobacco ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, since probably the late 60's you'd have to have lived under a rock your whole life not to know smoking is bad, very bad.
Most people start smoking when they are still minors, and don't have the maturity to disregard peer pressure and make good long term decisions.
Many tobacco ads specifically targeted young people.
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I was a minor in the 60's and I still knew. Granted I was not a kid that fell for peer pressure much. The problem is that even with the ad's, in fact maybe because of the new ad's kids who smoke will be seen as rebels and become the cool kids again.
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Funny how they are still legal to buy, if they are known to cause cancer why hasn't the FDA simply banned sale of the product? (Answer: big money)
I never cared for smokers, but when I see one now I just look down on them like they are just plain stupid stinky idiots. Now I'm sure I'm going too far, but at some point health care should no longer cover illness due to smoking.
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Mr. Mackey: "LSD's bad, mmmkay?"
I wonder what the cost to society would be if all the smokers dropped the tobacco this instant and started to microdose [huffingtonpost.com] LSD.
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Besides that, how is this not a freedom of speech violation? I hate big tobacco as much as the next guy, but it was legal to make and sell cigarettes, and still is. How can the government force a company to actively advocate against itself?
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They should start the same lawsuit for guns.... maybe in 10-20 years we can finally get the guns lobby that guns doesnâ(TM)t make us safer.
Tobacco kills 480,000 Americans every year.
66% of the 30,000 gun deaths every year are due to suicide. Given that fact, the "gun" lawsuit should be attacking those who fail to fund and address mental health properly. You don't address obesity by suing manufacturers of high-capacity spoons.
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I disagree with ownership of high-capacity military-style arms by civilians, and yes, I know what I'm talking about when I label guns (former Marine here). I believe civilians should be allowed to own handguns with less than 10 rounds, shotguns, and hunting/target rifles. Self defense is easily handled with a pump-action shotgun or a revolver. No one needs AR-15s and AK-pattern rifles. They are now beyond ever being labeled as "benign", no matter how the NRA or other asshat organization may try to market them for civilian use. Both rifles' origins are in killing. Full stop.
I will not be giving up my civilian guns, though. I live in rural Texas. Do you know how long it would take the police to arrive were I to have a home invasion? Like I tell people, when SECONDS count, the police are MINUTES away. I'll be keeping my 1897 Winchester trench gun and my Smith & Wesson .44 Special, thank you.
The second amendment isn't about self defense. It's about a heavily armed populace that enemies of the state, foreign or domestic, would fear.
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I disagree with ownership of high-capacity military-style arms by civilians, and yes, I know what I'm talking about when I label guns (former Marine here). I believe civilians should be allowed to own handguns with less than 10 rounds, shotguns, and hunting/target rifles. Self defense is easily handled with a pump-action shotgun or a revolver. No one needs AR-15s and AK-pattern rifles. They are now beyond ever being labeled as "benign", no matter how the NRA or other asshat organization may try to market them for civilian use. Both rifles' origins are in killing. Full stop.
I will not be giving up my civilian guns, though. I live in rural Texas. Do you know how long it would take the police to arrive were I to have a home invasion? Like I tell people, when SECONDS count, the police are MINUTES away. I'll be keeping my 1897 Winchester trench gun and my Smith & Wesson .44 Special, thank you.
The second amendment isn't about self defense. It's about a heavily armed populace that enemies of the state, foreign or domestic, would fear.
...well regulated...
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Nope. The text makes a statement of fact (that a well regulated militia is necessary). Whether you believe that to be true or not is irrelevant. Then it says the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That right is not conditional upon your belief in or agreement with the previous fact.
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Correct. I am not American so I have absolutely no bone in this fight.
If you look at the 2nd amendment and the letter written about it by the founders who drafted it, you will clearly see that their intention was to permanently enable the citizenry to overthrow their government. The thinking was that that way, government would never get too corrupt to be checked.
However, there is a nuance to be made. In those days, there was a hard limit on how many casualties 1 single person could inflict. So even if you h
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No, you can't argue for any limit. Not without violating the obvious and simple rule that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
If you want a limit, amend the constitution. Anything else is illegal and throws the entirety of the constitution in jeopardy.
Further, they had explosives, ships, canons, fire, poisons, etc. The only limit on how many people you could kill was the number of people trying to stop you.
Re:Smoke SHIT and DIE! (Score:5, Insightful)
American stupidity is only part of the problem.
The other part is that the tobacco companies have been DELIBERATELY, and FLAGRANTLY, lying their ASSES off about it.
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it was the SERPENT who got the worst punishment of all for fibbing.
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Except the serpent didn't really lie, did he?
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When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it was the SERPENT who got the worst punishment of all for fibbing.
Except the serpent didn't really lie, did he?
You do realize that none of that actually happened, right? It's a cool story and all, but still fiction.
Compassion & massive health pgms needed (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like the speech ramifications of curtailing messages I don't like, nor would I choose to curtail your freedom to say what you did, but I also think the reasons why people smoke are far more complicated and require more compassion than can be addressed by calling them "stupid". Persistent messages telling people smoking is socially advantageous plus addictive chemicals engineered to keep users hooked are apparently a potent combination.
We do ourselves and the people suffering from a problem we seek to "fix" a disservice by belittling them. Real solutions won't come in the form of curtailing free speech or such namecalling. We could do a lot better to get the tobacco companies to fund health and recovery programs for smokers, programs they fund but have no say in designing or administering (since they've clearly declared themselves to be untrustworthy for such a task), even if that means these companies end up paying billions of dollars which reallocate all of their profits. Putting more people into single-payer healthcare (Medicare for all) would help focus people's attention on chronic issues as well.
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Considering the amount of TAX money cities, states, federal government get from the sales of cigarettes, you would think they would encourage smoking. You watch, the continued decline in tobacco sales will result in less money coming into governments, and they will cry about not having enough money.
A product that kills 480,000 Americans every year is legal.
What the fuck do you call that, because I call it support.