War in doubt, Millions of Americans might die as a result

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“By assuming that the tobacco war has been won, we risk consigning millions of Americans to premature death,” Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and Kenneth E. Warner, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, wrote in the article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/health/09smoke.html?hpw

OMG! MUST. HIT. HARDER!

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People are getting the image that it’s cool to use nicotine as a drug,” Terry F. Pechacek of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an interview. “We need to bring back our voice, our antismoking mass media campaign.”

IDK, is there a single person left in America who has not yet been made aware that smoking is a great evil the will kill them? Are more commercials with the claim really going to change anyone's mind, make the claims any more persuasive?

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@hawkeye10,

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IDK, is there a single person left in America who has not yet been made aware that smoking is a great evil the will kill them? Are more commercials with the claim really going to change anyone's mind, make the claims any more persuasive?

People do not normally become first times smokers beyond their teens years and a health risk that thirty years into the future compare to looking cool to the their peers is no enough.

So yes it would seem that hitting teens as they become teens with the message that smoking is not cool using the funds raised from the tobacco companies is not an unwise use of the money.

Placing/stealing those funds and placing them into the general public account is not wise for the above reason.

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@hawkeye10,

I'm not sure that intensifying the anti-smoking campaign, and focusing it on teens, will help. On the other hand, it couldn't hurt either.

There is certainly merit in continuing to discourage teens from smoking. Not acquiring the habit is much easier than trying to break it later. Looking cool by smoking is no more sensible than looking cool by driving a car recklessly fast. A renewed ad campaign to give teen smokers a definitely unflattering image might gain some traction, while just emphasizing health risks might fall on deaf ears.

The recent attempts to increase cigarette taxes, both to raise revenue and discourage smoking, might impact teens the most, given their relative incomes. Certainly, teens in NY will now have to shell out an awful lot per pack.

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New York City residents are now the heaviest-taxed people in America, when it comes to their smokes. Thanks to new law that took effect earlier this month, a pack of cigarettes in NYC now costs over $10, and more than $8 per pack elsewhere in the Empire State. That tax rise also affects cigars, smokeless tobacco and other tobacco products.

The higher New York tobacco taxes are expected to raise nearly $300 million in state revenues for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, while saving the state billions of dollars in future health costs. "This tax increase should be the motivation smokers need to give up this deadly addiction for good," New York's health commissioner said in a recent press release.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/taxes/global-tobacco-taxes/19545924/

Generally, raising taxes has not diminished cigarette use. But, where the smoking habit is not yet firmly established, those high prices for cigarettes might be a deterrent. It will be interesting to see if that will be the case with teens in NY. There might be a lot of other things they'd rather buy with their money than expensive cigarettes.

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@firefly,

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I'm not sure that intensifying the anti-smoking campaign, and focusing it on teens, will help. On the other hand, it couldn't hurt either

actually it could...do you remember DARE and "just say no"?? These programs lost credibility but the sellers just kept right on trying to sell, and that is how both programs became valuable only for their humour content.

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@hawkeye10,

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These programs lost credibility but the sellers just kept right on trying to sell, and that is how both programs became valuable only for their humour content

.

Somehow I do not think any teen began using drugs because of the DARE program so at worst it did no harm.

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@BillRM,

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Somehow I do not think any teen began using drugs because of the DARE program so at worst it did no harm.

Honor
trust
authority
honesty
respect for people
respect for the education process

So which is it, where none of these harmed, or does not matter?

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@hawkeye10,

Smoking is bad for your health period both long and short term it is bad and stating so over and over seem not to be a bad thing to do.

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@hawkeye10,

Somehow I doubt that students' honor, honesty, and trust for other people, is being harmed by exposure to the DARE program.

Evidence does suggest that the DARE program is ineffective, and a waste of money that could be spent on programs more likely to obtain better results.The solution is not to abandon efforts to decrease alcohol and drug use (including tobacco use) among children and teens, but rather to implement more effective programs. Social norms marketing techniques, for instance, appear to be more effective than the DARE approach.

Teens, who want to "fit in", may be far more influenced by what their peer group is doing, than by any scare tactics about the long term health effects of smoking. If smoking is considered "cool", or even acceptable, anti-smoking campaigns can be directed toward portraying the teen smoker in a negative social light, in an attempt to alter attitudes toward those who smoke, and to decrease any perceived social benefits from smoking. Similarly, those who resist smoking, or attempt to quit, can be portrayed as having enhanced social status or personal qualities. Coupled with smoking cessation techniques and help, for those teens who already smoke, such marketing techniques might be quite effective. The power of advertising shouldn't be underestimated. Harnessing that power was one way the tobacco manufacturers got people to start smoking decades ago. The same techniques can be used to try to dissuade teens from smoking now.

By focusing on alcohol and illegal drug use, and the problem of childhood obesity, the anti-smoking message, specifically directed toward teens, may have gotten short shrift in recent years. The current statistics on teen smoking suggest that it is imperative that we renew our efforts to decrease cigarette use in that age group. There are no sufficient reasons why we should not attempt to mount effective campaigns to achieve that end.

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@firefly,

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The power of advertising shouldn't be underestimated. Harnessing that power was one way the tobacco manufacturers got people to start smoking decades ago. The same techniques can be used to try to dissuade teens from smoking now.

I am not convinced that most kids are open to being sold a point of view by the adults. I think that adults have pretty much pissed away our credibility and that kids mostly tune us out now.

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@hawkeye10,

If there is anyone in America who doesn't know the health risks of smoking cigarettes, it's because they have been living in a closet.

First time smokers aren't ignorant about the health risks, they simply do not see them as being as great as do folks like Dr. Schroeder.

None of these people are putting lit sticks of dynamite in their mouths because they know that everytime anyone tries to smoke dynamite they will blow off their heads.

Everyone who has smoked has not come down with cancer and died, and just about everyone knows of someone who lived a long, cancer-free life despite their smoking habit.

This is not to dispute the health threat posed by cigarettes, nor to suggest that anyone is making a reasonable decision when they first choose to smoke, but young people who are, today, choosing to smoke would not make a different choice if anti-tobacco ads were run around the clock.

And its not a question of youth relevant advertising. Today's anti-tobacco ads do not feature a lecture from someone like Dr. Schroeder. They are specifically aimed at young people, and Madison Avenue has demonstrated very well that it is able to influence the choices of youths.

Obviously, there is an upside to smoking that trumps the perceived health risks, and the perceived health risks are not as dire as the opponents of tobacco use present them to be.

Two of my children smoke cigarettes and they are, otherwise, intelligent and educated. Many of their friends do too.

The major flaw in their risk analysis of smoking comes from their lack of appreciation for the addictive nature of nicotine. They all know smoking is a health risk, but they all believe the risk is not very great if you only smoke for a relatively short period of time --- and in this they are probably right.

They also all know that nicotine is addictive, but they all believe that they will be able to quit whenever they choose to do so --- and in this they are very wrong.

I don't believe any educational program can convince the majority of people who have never been addicted that they will become addicted if they use a particular substance.

Sometimes experience is the only effective teacher.

And, in the final analysis, people should be free to choose smoking cigarettes if they so desire.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

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The major flaw in their risk analysis of smoking comes from their lack of appreciation for the addictive nature of nicotine.

I think that the major flaw was that the anti-smoking crusaders made exaggerated claims (grossly exaggerated really), and so now all such claims are not taken seriously. I think everyone knows that smoking will not be good, but since how bad is not known people kinda blow it off.

Edit: I think was saw admission of this in the last anti-smoking campaign, where they got off the health claims and focused on how it supposedly makes your breath smell and teeth black, and will get in the way of your sex life. The problem with that approach is that this world view was not supported by the actual lives of those who were supposed to believe it....these kids have a lot of friends who do smoke, who do great scoring sex...so it was just another adult lie.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

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And, in the final analysis, people should be free to choose smoking cigarettes if they so desire.

People should be free to choose leaded gasoline, lead based paints, asbestos laden building materials, formaldehyde laden building materials, bottled water with added toxins.

It matters not that the costs for all these things will ultimately have to be borne by the taxpayers for there is an inherent, unquestionable right that exists for companies to poison people just to make money.

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@JTT,

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It matters not that the costs for all these things will ultimately have to be borne by the taxpayers for there is an inherent

Cigarette smokers have proven to be willing to pay enough tax to cover all REAL smoking related health costs, so this argument of yours is crap. It is time for you to move on to another rationalization for your hatred for tobacco, because that one is toast.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Well, actually it isn't. And hearing you say so only makes it a stronger argument. It's kinda like arguing that separate but equal will work if we were to just increase the number of separate but equal drinking fountains.

Why is tobacco given a reprieve for poisoning people when no one else is?

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@JTT,

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Why is tobacco given a reprieve for poisoning people when no one else is?

because the collective has very limited ability to influence the relationship between the individual and his vices. Do we really need to relearn the lesson of alcohol prohibition again already?, or the "WAR ON DRUGS" lesson?, or vendetta against the oldest profession lesson? or the...

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@hawkeye10,

Smoking rate had drive over the decades and as far as teenage smoking is concern a relationship between their rate of smoking and anti-smoking message seem kind of firm.

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@BillRM,

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Smoking rate had drive over the decades and as far as teenage smoking is concern a relationship between their rate of smoking and anti-smoking message seem kind of firm.

dropping from 35% to 20% of HS students smoking, and then no change over the last 8 years does not rate as a stellar success considered how much money and effort was thrown into the sales job, not to mention the science against smoking was advertised to be air tight, and cigarettes became much more difficult to buy. Hell, I am old enough to remember cig vending machines.

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@hawkeye10,

That is what a 40 percent or so decrease and million of man/women years of added living.

And billions in less cost in treating lung cancers.

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@hawkeye10,

That doesn't address the issue of why the tobacco industry is allowed to market a product that is toxic to humans. No other industry is allowed to do so. It's the height of stupidity to allow them to go on, free rein, marketing poison.

There is much ado when a mining disaster kills forty or fifty people, cries that we must make the mines safe, an airplane crash takes a couple of hundred, blah blah blah, but tobacco,

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Today one out of every five people who die in the US dies because of smoking. Smoking tobacco is responsible for more deaths than cocaine, heroin, alcohol, fire, automobile accidents, homicides, suicides, and AIDS combined That amounts to about 430,000 people who die needlessly every year.....1,200 people who die every day.... because of their addiction to cigarettes. It's like having several completely full jumbo jets crash every day, killing all aboard! (John Slade, M.D. from the Nicotine Challenger, Spring 1993)

http://www.costkids.org/tobacco/tobacco/factsheet.htm

All 1200 of those impending daily deaths should launch a class action lawsuit. Action is what is needed, not less action, not this silly distraction that "people are responsible for their own actions. Companies are responsible for not marketing products that are inherently dangerous.

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@JTT,

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at doesn't address the issue of why the tobacco industry is allowed to market a product that is toxic to humans. No other industry is allowed to do so. It's the height of stupidity to allow them to go on, free rein, marketing poison

if that is really a serious concern for you I suggest that you start with the major drug companies, they are a much bigger problem when it comes to peddling toxicity.....

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War in doubt, Millions of Americans might die as a result

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