Wednesday, November 10, 2010

A suggestion to the Feds for the large graphic warning labels soon to be required on cigarette packs

From the L.A. Times:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Corpses, cancer patients and diseased lungs: These are some of the images the federal government plans for larger, graphic warning labels that will take up half of each cigarette package.


The images are part of a new campaign announced by the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday to reduce tobacco use, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths per year.


"It acts as a very public billboard because you all of the sudden are reading something about lung cancer from that pack behind the cash register, whereas before you were just reading 'Marlboro,' " said David Hammond, a health behavior researcher at the University of Waterloo in Canada, who is working with the firm designing the labels with for the FDA.

....Anti-tobacco advocates are applauding the federal campaign and the new warning labels.


"This is going to stop kids from starting to smoke ... and it's going to give smokers a strong incentive to quit smoking," said Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of R.J. Reynolds and executive director of the Foundation for a Smokefree America. Reynolds' father, brother and other relatives died from smoking-related illnesses.

It remains to be seen how well the scare tactics will work.

"I don't think they're going to be a deterrent at all for people who already smoke. Most people start smoking when they're young, and I don't think they're going to think about the effects," said 27-year-old Zak Hoffman, who has been smoking since age 14.

Well, Zak, that's because I'm not the one picking out the pictures. 
Forget cancer, gum disease, and tongue amputations. 
Put me in charge of the pictures, and I'll scare the hell out of some smokers. 

How about the now-proven link between smoking and economic retardation, communication difficulties, and an inability to speak without prompts? 

I got yer frightening graphic images right here.  Get the kids out of the room, back away from your computer, and hit this link. 

A fresh coat of Whitening to the P.O.W. In California for the heads up on this one. 

8 comments:

kerrcarto said...

I think Dennis Leary said it best when he said

"There's a guy- I don't know if you've heard about this guy, he's been on the news a lot lately. There's a guy- he's English, I don't think we should hold that against him, but apparently this is just his life's dream because he is going from country to country. He has a senate hearing in this country coming up in a couple of weeks. And this is what he wants to do. He wants to make the warnings on the packs bigger. Yeah! He wants the whole front of the pack to be the warning. Like the problem is we just haven't noticed yet. Right? Like he's going to get his way and all of the sudden smokers around the world are going to be going, "Yeah, Bill, I've got some cigarettes.. HOLY SHIT! These things are bad for you! Shit, I thought they were good for you! I thought they had Vitamin C in them and stuff!" You fucking dolt! Doesn't matter how big the warnings are. You could have cigarettes that were called the warnings. You could have cigarrets that come in a black pack, with a skull and a cross bone 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, ok!? They're a drug, we're addicted, ok!? Numm Numm Numm Numm Numm *wheeze*" - Dennis Leary - 1993

We have become England.

Cedric Katesby said...

Corpses, cancer patients and diseased lungs: These are some of the images the federal government plans for larger, graphic warning labels that will take up half of each cigarette package.

That would be a real change from the images that have been promoted before.


The images are part of a new campaign announced by the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday to reduce tobacco use, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths per year.

443,000 deaths per year?
Tobacco alarmism propoganda.
Dogma.
Don't let big government tell you what to do.
You've come a long way, baby!
Junk science.
How do we know it's falsifiable?
The science is not settled.
There is no consensus.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

All the more reason for our Smoker-in-chief to put down his cancer sticks.
Or....leave everyone else alone to do with their bodies as they please. Like he does with his.

Hot Sam said...

Pffft. Adolf Hitler knew that smoking was unhealthy back in the 1920s. For anyone to claim they received inadequate warnings or disinformation, I say, "Liar, liar lungs on fire."

Who wouldn't guess that inhaling the vapors from a smoldering weed would be unhealthy for you? It took HOURS for people to start complaining about the air at Ground Zero as soon as they realized money would be involved.

Government makes a fortune on tobacco taxes which makes them a queer beneficiary of tobacco lawsuits. I am old enough to remember that the whole purpose of tobacco lawsuits was to attack the funding for Jesse Helms' campaigns. It began as petty politics and devolved into a greedy cash grab.

I'm pissed that courts penalized tobacco companies for marketing a legal drug. I'm more pissed that the judgment money in the BILLIONS was given to left-wing non-profits to make ads attacking TOBACCO COMPANIES, and not the product or its use.

This is the "nudge", a la Cass Sunstein. If a nudge from government doesn't get people to do as government pleases, the nudge becomes a push, the push becomes a shove, then the shove becomes a threat.

The correct way to deal with smokers is to permit insurance companies to charge them higher insurance premiums. Anything else is oppressive.

This legislation is INTENDED only to be a thumb in the eye of tobacco companies, not to reduce smoking.

Hot Sam said...

What do we regulate next? Red meat, fettucini alfredo, ice cream? Or how about removing toys from Happy Meals?

John Robbins was the son of Irv Robbins, the co-founder of Baskin Robbins. John rejected his father's lifestyle and business, advocating a healthy lifestyle and a vegan diet. After his father passed away, John attributed his father's death from diabetes to a lifetime of eating ice cream. John writes books. He wrote a book called Healthy at 100.

Irv Robbins died at the age of 92. John is 63 and still has three decades to prove he'll be healthier than his father, and almost four decades to prove he will still be healthy at 100.

I'd rather die at 91 with a lifetime of joyful eating, pleasing others, and creating thousands of jobs than dying in my 100s as an arrogant, self-serving, grass-fed leftist scumbag who lives in a log cabin in the mountains.

Cedric Katesby said...

All the more reason for our Smoker-in-chief to put down his cancer sticks.

Exactly. But he doesn't.
Therefore,...it's all a hoax.
Right?
One photo trumps peer-reviewed research. That's just common sense.That's good science.

This is the "smoking gun" right there.
Who ultimately runs the EPA?
Obama.
Who has the best medical advisors?
Obama?
Who smokes?
Obama.

Pay no attention to that cigarette he's smoking.
Irony is so lost on those people.
NONE of the politicians believe ANY of the smoking gives you cancer horsecrap. NONE.
It is an easy way for them to gain power from the gullible.
Right?

Or....leave everyone else alone to do with their bodies as they please.

Exactly. It's all about choice.
Freedom.
Who can argue against choice and freedom?
Nobody.
And who is willing to be brave enough and strong enough to stand up for your rights as an individual...for freedom and choice?
Tobacco companies.


For anyone to claim they received inadequate warnings or disinformation, I say, "Liar, liar lungs on fire."

Tobacco companies have always tried to warn people about the dangers of tobacco and cancer.
Always.
Again and again and again, if you look hard enough, it was the tobacco companies who tried to helpfully inform the public about warnings and disinformation.
The government is your real enemy.
Tobacco companies have been persecuted enough.
The government has always spread disinformation about the risks of smoking and the cigarette companies have always tried to protect the interests of the pubic.

Tobacco companies have always stood up for the health of ordinary people like you and me.
Good science, not junk science.
Fred Singer is a real scientist.
A real, REAL scientist.

Who bravely tried to protect citizens from the evils of radon?
Tobacco companies.

Cedric Katesby said...

What do we regulate next? Red meat, fettucini alfredo, ice cream? Or how about removing toys from Happy Meals?

Good comparison.
Perfect.
I'm with you on this.

Trying to regulate tobacco is exactly like trying to regulate food and toys.
Exactly.

Do you like applesauce?
I like applesauce.
Tobacco companies like applesauce too.


Regulating tobacco is like trying to regulate joy and pleasing others and applesauce and creating thousands of jobs.

I think we can all see where this is going.
Next, the government will be using junk science to tell us that cigarettes are somehow "addictive".
Yeah, "addictive".
Pshaw.

Kevin said...

"I'd rather die at 91 with a lifetime of joyful eating, pleasing others, and creating thousands of jobs than dying in my 100s as an arrogant, self-serving, grass-fed leftist scumbag who lives in a log cabin in the mountains."

what a disgusting person you are. i eat happily, and i'm not left-wing, altho i could possibly be a "leftist scumbag" and i certainly do not live in a log cabin. fuck you. surely, it seems YOU'RE against free choice? despite the fact that story has little to do with that article..

i do agree with the rest of you, re: people making their own health choices. raising taxes is not a deterrent as the govt claim (as if we didn't know what was good for us), it's an income for them to piss more money up YOUR wall!