Is there anything quite as insufferable as a smoker complaining about their “rights”? Ban it, hand out nicotine patches, and end it.
And you can’t even say “well that’ll just create a black market!” because it’s the shittiest drug in the world. Oooh, a mild tingling in your mouth, whooooah, move over coke and heroin, there’s a new king in town. “Man, I could trip balls and watch the walls melt, stay up for three days straight talking to Jesus, or feel like I’m melting into my sofa for a couple hours, but boy oh boy, burning this shit that makes my throat itch and nothing else sounds like a way better time!” Fuck, even a forty of malt liquor would be better fun.
It’s a limpdick sin of choice for people trying to be cool by doing something “dangerous”. It’s the goatee and a combover of drugs.
Unfortunately, it’s not true that these ads will “contain frank admissions that they violated federal racketeering and fraud laws when they conspired…”. Here’s a rather long excerpt from the NYT Story:
Judge Kessler originally ordered each set of statements to begin with a notice that cigarette makers had “deliberately deceived the American public” about the dangers of smoking. But as a result of legal appeals by the companies, we will hear only that “A federal court has ordered” the companies to “make this statement about the health effects of smoking.” There is no mention of the industry’s long campaign of deception, nothing about what is actually being “corrected.” The viewer or reader might not even realize that the point is to correct the industry’s lies with the truth.
I’d like to see us handle it the way other countries do:
• Make cigarettes crazy expensive, like $20/pack (i.e., Canada, Australia, NZ) to subsidize treatment
• Ban all cigarette advertising, no sexy cigarette ads
• Make the packs themselves horribly unattractive, i.e. Australia:
I’m going to assume you mean that seriously, but when has that ever happened? I don’t see cities banning soda or junk food - no that would be killing the chicken who laid the golden egg. Instead you tax the “bad” and keep a slice of that pie for the city/county/state… The only time they kill off a company is when it actually starts costing them real money that can’t be deferred.
Sure, but that’s no remedy for corporate bad behavior. The only way to change corporate behavior is to cost the shareholders money - or take it all away, i.e. death sentence.
Exposure to radon, asbestos or tobacco smoke will multiply the probability that you will get cancer.
Your occupation and place of residence determine the base rate that’s being multiplied. Occupational exposure to carcinogens, and the way that amoral employers shape legislation and public discourse to allow that to continue, is well documented and serves as the model for Big Tobacco’s behavior. Air pollution varies by location, and generally is higher the closer you are to a large industrial base.
If air pollution has something to do with lung cancer, one would expect lung cancer mortality to be higher in cities than in the surrounding open country. And indeed, according to American, English, and Swedish statistics, lung tumor incidence is 2 to 3 times higher in cities than in the country. – Süss & Kinzel, 2012
Can they run these outside the US too? Because the number of smokers I see here is small, but man when I go overseas, my al fresco eating might as well be above a chimney.
Now if you want to spend that money and effort on any number of other horrible things that extreme capitalism has brought us, then please feel free.
Canada has ghastly pictures on cigarette packs, as well as a mandatory insert about quitting. In BC, where I live, smoking cessation is free (patches, gum, etc.) as well.
