Anti smoking and placebo effect

OK big rant for today..mostly about government propaganda


I remember when 'high impact' advertising hit our shores...mid 80s with an AIDs campaign (grim reaper).

Since then, australian government has gone nuts with it.

I have a big problem with these high impact ads. For smoking, they started sensible & educational...like "smoking increases chance of lung cancer"

....but now it is screaming nazi propaganda...like "YOU WILL DIE"

View attachment 50934

Which is not true. Big link between smoking and lung cancer. I agree. Tenuous link with everything else.
Smokers are not into looking after themselves, so can find tenuous stuff everywhere if you really want to.

Look at your stats. Cancer mortality is not a patch on heart disease here. Lung cancer is not anywhere as large as bowel cancer. Of the 8,500 australians who died from lung cancer last census, getting on 80% were linked to smoking. Pretty small bunch out of 25,000,000.

On slightly dodgy ground here....old memory from friend's public health essay.....risk of dying from lung cancer DOES go up over 30%, but the raw mortality numbers goes from like 0.011% to 0.013%. Slightly different story & a far cry from YOU WILL DIE.


In that public health uni course^, friend was taught how it goes....you start with program that u wanna push....do a poll....if >1/3 people agree, pass into law. If <1/3 agree, mount advertising campaign. Re-poll. If still <1/3, scale up campaign....repeat as many time as necc.

Really? Is that kosher?

And where is the propaganda for sky-divers? Rock fishermen? Where will it end!??



How is it that government can forcibly take my money, use it to try and brainwash me (always EXTREMELY unwelcome) and yet sit on millions of dollars of tobacco shares in their (retirement) superfund?
And happily accept lots of tobacco $$ donations.
And talk about a protected industry! Fine for growing tobacco here is $50,000 per plant + back-calculated tax evasion on top.
Eg in comparison, a marijuana plant is ~$200 on the spot fine - and thats it! - not even a conviction.

Soooo 2 faced! They welcome tobacco companies in private & shame them in public.

I'm sick of it all. Cigarettes packets that make kids cry, what the fuck are they thinking?

Pretty excited that our government is targeting sugar now. Haha, bitten off more than they can chew taking on the fatties i reckon!

Might take 5 years, but i'm just waiting for the groundswell of outrage.

In the meantime, i'm tempted to mount a law suit. If i ever get lung cancer, i think placebo effect from propaganda is a strong case.
If govt. is outsourcing to advertising execs. (as i'm sure they are), they have had the balls to hire professional liars to do the job.

Trouble is i'd be suing neighbours. Would only be satisfying if i could personally sue those responsible. Any ideas welcome.

Ok thanks for reading my rant. Have a great day!

:dizzy2:

 

Cigarette smoking is a nasty habit. Thankfully, it is one I never started.

 

to be clear - i totally agree with you Maelstrom^, i'm glad you're not a smoker too

but is that enough to justify propaganda?

 

When studies show that second hand smoke is just as dangerous to the non-smoker's lungs as outright smoking, then yes. I have been diagnosed with emphysema due to second hand smoke, and I do believe in the Truth ads in regards to getting people to quit. Of course, now there are the electronic cigarettes which are safe for both smokers and non-smokers, but I doubt many smokers are going that route.

 

Man that sucks. Such a debilitating disease.
If I had a magic wand I’d change it in a second.

I do not feel personally responsible tho.
½ a world away, how could I be?
Question is: do you hold me even-a-little-bit personally responsible?


And let me reduce this morning’s rant:

If I’m seeking truth, I certainly don’t turn to adverts. Forcing me to watch adverts is a good way to piss me off. Forcing me to pay for those ads I’m forced to watch seals it.
Its smokers now, but that = thin edge of wedge. Soon we'll all be waking to klaxons + star jumps + fruit for brekkie. Its coming, for sure.
And again that's^ really a Good Call, but mine to make for myself, not some murkily-advised idiot with an agenda who i have 0 respect for.

Some day all non-smokers will be going through what us smokers are going through.

Personally i can't wait.

:devil:

 

smoking does kill you. it may not be as poisonous as to kill you within a day, so it looks like it doesn't kill you. but it does, it's just a slower process.

and it's hardly 'nazi' propaganda. it's a pointless fucking thing to do to yourself and other people around you who have to inhale that shit. i couldn't care less what they put into the ads, it's probably true on one level or another when you start thinking about it. so, get a grip. face it that you're inhaling poison into your lungs and stop complaining about other people seeing it for what it is.

 

I agree, they are slightly out of proportion but brought as the actual risk and thus it is propaganda indeed. My humble opinion is it is not justified. This will always remain subjective I'm afraid.

 

so you guys think lung cancer doesn't kill, huh?

 

I think most people who smoke don't end up like the people depicted on the photo's of those packages. It is ridicilous to confront the average smoker with those pictures.

 

do you even hear yourself speak? your i'd-take-it-away would have some weight if you actually DID DO something about it. but here you are agreeing that it's debilitating and yet at the same time go on about how you're not responsible in the least bit at all. science has proven that 2nd hand smoking causes serious health issues. it's not propaganda. it's a fact. the fact that you didn't cause Maelstrom's emphysema doesn't mean you didn't contribute to someone else's. some people are more susceptible to it and others less. it's you and the rest of the millions of smokers who are collectively responsible for the former group.

i'm not a moralizing person at all usually, but i hate this attitude you express here. grow a fucking brain. drunk drivers aren't harmful to most people either. it's that one or two persons they end up killing they are harmful to. and this is exactly what you and the rest of the smokers in this world are. the drunk drivers. harmless when looked at it on average, but guilty of killing one or two.

 

i don't care what smokers do to themselves with their smoking. health management is everyone's own responsibility. everyone has the right to kill themself after all. it's the fact that they directly risk other people's health and stubbornly refuse to admit that that is hypocritical and unacceptable in my opinion.

edit: do you want your kids to smoke? what are the ads supposed to do then? show a healthy lung and go 'this will be more likely'? i think it's justified. because smoking is essentially pointless, and i think we need to try to reduce it. if exaggerated lung damage helps to scare a few kids away from smoking it's all good. although we also need to hit the brakes with it being associated with forbidden or ''bad'' behavior, that is exactly what will draw others to it. it's not bad behavior. it's stupid behavior. that's how it should be depicted.

 

I'm a physician in Canada that used to smoke........lol, pot calling the kettle black. But I quit 6 years ago because my children asked me to.

Now, they may be prone to influential propaganda through school, I agree. But when the children ask dad to stop for them ........ they make the best point. Yes, I would do it for them.

On one hand, it did use to bother me seeing those ugly pictures on the package of cigarettes. But truthfully, with the kids asking, me seeing what really does happen, and seeing patients in my practice actually not only a few, but many of them getting COPD, put on oxygen, emphysema, and lung cancer. At the end, it's a vice that has no happy ending.

A person may not have gotten cancer or lung disease, but they did voluntarily then buy these items which are highly taxed, given this money to their politicians to use against them...........so, I guess they have the right to laugh at a smokers addiction.

For in reality, it has become an addiction........not for the smoke taste, not for the downtime it takes to have one smoke, but for that nicotine you cannot taste but can feel coursing through your veins. For that is the secret, the hidden chemical reaction that tells a smokers brain to "light" up another, or to argue that it isn't harmful. A very careful and crafty chemical.

Weed, on the other hand is another story.........lol.