1/12: Canadian cigarette warnings

[Undertoad]

These are Canadian cigarette warning messages, which I had not seen until this week. These and about 12 other message rotate on cigarette packages; the message takes up roughly half the package. The messages have been in place for a year now, and this week the Canuck Cancer Assn. announced that they had studied the results of the campaign, and I quote:

"Half the smokers contacted said that the warning had increased their motivation to quit, while more than a third of smokers who tried to quit in 2001 said the labels had been a factor. About a fifth of smokers said the pictures had at least once curbed their urge to light up."

In other words: they didn't work. The twisting and spinning of the study here is remarkable, but the bottom line is that the people who were smokers - or non-smokers - at the beginning of 2001, are still smokers in the beginning of 2002.

There is a Bill Hicks bit about this, but I don't have time to find it...

[elSicomoro]

When a friend of mine went to Europe in 1995, she brought back a pack of Marlboro Lights from the UK. I liked their warnings at the bottom of the pack:

"Smoking causes cancer."

"Smoking can kill you."

I have the warning about pregnancy issues on my current pack.

[Nic Name]

What about these pictures makes you so upset?

Are you a smoker?

Recent studies also showed that smokers often failed to seek medical attention for symptoms, because they thought they would be told to quit smoking. As a result many smokers are dying from treatable illnesses.

Many smokers wouldn't quit if they coughed up a lung. Graphic labels won't convince these people to quit. It just pisses them off.

But, if these pictures aren't enough to convince the addicted to quit, perhaps they might discourage non-smokers from lighting up. How stupid would you have to be to take a first puff of something in a package like that?

See CNN for the full details of the study.

[Undertoad]

I'm not a smoker. But if the labels don't work, it indicates that perhaps the issue is more complicated than the labelites believe. And if the labels don't work and they continue to be lauded and used, then DEFINITELY the issue is more complicated than anyone believes.

The anti-smoking campaign has gone beyond simple public service and is a decade into bizarre punishment rituals. It is an odd way to treat addiction: punish the addict. Make them stand outside in the freezing cold. Make them go a little longer than they want for a fix. Make them carry around and occasionally look at gruesome photos and warnings about all sorts of bizarre health problems from which they will die.

If all this doesn't work, it is no longer about making them stop. It's no longer about public service messages. It's about making them feel bad - and us, the non-smokers, feel superior. It's about paying for the sins of the past. But it's not help, nor is it a reasonable substitute for help. How can it be help if it doesn't work?

[Nic Name]

But, if these pictures aren't enough to convince the addicted to quit, perhaps they might discourage non-smokers from lighting up. How stupid would you have to be to take a first puff of something in a package like that?

These warnings may work to dissuade non-smokers from starting, even if nothing works, as you say, to get the addicted to quit.

Unfortunately, the study does not appear to measure the effect of these images on young non-smokers. This approach may well be worth the effort.

Anyway, contrary to your analysis that the campaign isn't working, the CNN report and coverage by the BBC indicates otherwise. By your logic, any survey of smokers will show that nothing works. All those studied are still smoking. Perhaps the study should have included the impact of these images on people who actually quit, and there may be many. And the impact of these pictures on those who haven't started smoking.

And why should non-smokers care? A recent study in the U.K. found that fewer than 10% of NON-SMOKERS studied were free of the effects of second hand smoke. The people most affected by smokers were their non-smoking loved ones. Don't expect that to change smokers' behavior.

What harm do these warnings cause, in any event?

Don't smoke Canadian cigarettes. Not to worry.

[Torrere]

That last image is something I hadn't seen before on an anti-smoking ad, and I think it's pretty well done =]

Although from what you mentioned from the survey; although yes it can mean that people who were smoking in 2001 are still smoking in 2002, and thus it didn't work... I'd disagree. Maybe it didn't cause a radical reduction of smokers, but it seems to have had at least SOME impact, and probably more than many of the anti-smoking posters that I have seen.

I also like how the images are placed on the cigarette package. Anybody who has such a package gets a reason not to smoke just about every time that they decide to.

[juju]

If they don't want people to smoke, then they should just make the damned things illegal. Heroin is illegal. Do you think if heroin were legal that these types of tactics would work to get people to quit? I seriously doubt it.
<br>
Hehe... BTW -- Denis Leary has a good bit about this too. Check it out (I know, I know, i'm stealing his intellectual property. Sorry Denis!):

<i>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 crossbone 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, okay? They're a drug, we're addicted, okay? Numm Numm Numm Numm Numm (Wheezes) I'm a little hyped up tonight. Little hyped up. Smoked a nice big fat bag of crack right before the show. (Screaming)ARRGGGHHH!</i>

[Nic Name]

In an interview this week, Bennett LeBow, Vector's chief executive, gave an interesting appraisal of Omni's advantages for smokers. It "will not kill them as quick or as much" as other brands, he said.

Now that's a catchy slogan.

[juju]

Originally posted by Undertoad
If all this doesn't work, it is no longer about making them stop. It's no longer about public service messages. It's about making them feel bad - and us, the non-smokers, feel superior. It's about paying for the sins of the past. But it's not help, nor is it a reasonable substitute for help. How can it be help if it doesn't work?

As far as making them stand outside goes -- I have heard that there are (recent) studies that show that secondhand smoke is just as likely to cause cancer as smoking a cigarette through the filter. So, if you're going to poison your own body, that's fine. But don't pollute mine if you don't have to.

As far as the excessive taxing goes, and the states suing them -- like I said in the last post, if they're that worried then they should just make the damned things illegal. If they don't want to make them illegal, then stop bugging the smokers, because it's legal.

[datalas]

I believe one of the main reasons why smoking is not illigal is the matter of Tax.

Whilst I don't want to sound like a political pessimist, the government (certainly in this country) have a population that is addicted to various things, cigarettes being one of them.

The easiest solution? Tax the bejesus out of them, that way the sufferers cough (bad pun) up the money, without much choice.

The government gets rich because they have you over a barrel, and what is more they can hike the price to the skyline and claim that it is in the public interest. There are few opportunites to screw the voters and tell them that its for their own good and I expect the current government (like all others before it) is simply going to milk the situation for what it is worth.

Now before anyone complains at me, I don't actually smoke, in fact I detest the things, they smell and affect my health. What I am trying to say, is that, like others have pointed out there are innumerable simple steps that anyone could take to overt the problem. Yet smoking in public places, resturants, food courts, shopping centers, taxi's, busses and everywhere else is restricted not by government decree, but by the owners of said public areas, where it is not enforced save a few "no smoking" stickers.

Makes you wonder whether they are trying to help after all doesn't it? Especially since, as pointed out a *lot* of smokers are afraid of seeking medical care for minor problems believing them to be smoking related thus not tying up the resources of a cash-starved over managed beurocraitc mess that is the NHS.

Datalas

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Ps, I think I took my cynical pills this morning, sorry.

[jaguar]

Its not tax, its crime. If you outlawed smoking you'd create a huge demand for an illgeal product, fantastic oppotunity for any organised crime syndicate. And i don't think MP's (congressmen, whatever) are going to make what they do illegal, its too common.

[datalas]

True enough I suppose, although I do sometimes wonder about the rather lack-lustre attempts to stop people from smoking.

The already addicted are told "ooooh, its bad for you", but are neither given particular motivation or assistance to stop (without it costing them)

The *are soon going to be addicted* are disuaded by reaaly effective adverts on TV, which currently have some strange alien figure telling kids that smoking makes you less attractive (which would, from my experience of school seem to be wrong) and very little real encouragement to break the peer pressure motivation.

As for the *not going to be addicted* set, we aren't exactly catered for in any public place....

I suspect the reason it is not illigal is for the reasons you suggested, but the reason it is not seemingly frowned upon (like being drunk in public) is for reasons of economy.

Still, i might be wrong. It has happened on several other occsaions

Datalas

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Oi, what happened to my .sig? (or should that be .cig )

[elSicomoro]

As a smoker, I can say that ads such as the ones shown have no effect on me. Unfortunately, scare tactics do not work for a lot of smokers. Nor do lectures, public disdain, etc.

I certainly have the reasons for quitting smoking, primarily my lung capacity. Also, the money issue. A pack of cigarettes in Pennsylvania is $2.75-$3.50 a pack. When I started smoking in 1995, they were $1.25 in SE Missouri. Unfortunately, nicotine is one hell of a drug. It is horrendously addictive...and I have tried to stop on many, many occasions--cold turkey, patch, cutting back, etc. When Jim Brady's wife came out about her smoking a month or so ago, I could empathize.

UT, mad props for your second post. We were talking about the non-smoking ads in another thread. Some believe banning smoking damn near everywhere will help. Friendship Heights, MD is trying to ban all smoking in public. Then there's California and its smoking ban. But what about TREATMENT? Only recently have some insurance companies included Zyban under co-pays. And Nicoderm is still almost double the cost of a carton of cigarettes per week. Yet, alcohol and drug treatment are covered under many insurance plans.

I don't think a lot of people view smoking in the same light as drinking in terms of addiction. But smoking CAN become an addiction. I AM an addict of cigarettes. But I am going to keep trying to quit b/c I want to better myself and my health.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by sycamore
But what about TREATMENT? Only recently have some insurance companies included Zyban under co-pays. And Nicoderm is still almost double the cost of a carton of cigarettes per week. Yet, alcohol and drug treatment are covered under many insurance plans.

What's covered and not covered by medical insurance is pretty capricious. My $13,000 surgery was completely paid for by me out-of-pocket...so I'm quite willing to see smokers buy their own Zyban and Nicoderm, especially considering what I'm paying every month to COBRA my health insurance.

Quitting is possible, even without drugs. I did it. More than once, before it stuck.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by MaggieL
Quitting is possible, even without drugs. I did it. More than once, before it stuck.

And that's great that you did it that way. But that's YOU. It doesn't necessarily work like that for everyone else.