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Let the mutherfuker burn!
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yellojktA Federal Judge blocked the FDA’s requirement that cigarette companies put graphic pictures of disease lungs, bodies on autopsy tables and other images on packs of cigarettes. He held that it violated the tobacco companies’ First Amendment Rights.
I like this quote from this NY Times article:
Paul G. Billings, vice president for national policy and advocacy at the American Lung Association. “This industry has been marketing its products to children for years in ways that have enticed them to use them — the Marlboro cowboy and Joe Camel — and what Congress said was fight back with all the same tools.”
That isn’t exactly a compelling First Amendment argument for upholding the FDA requirements, but I thought it was a good point. The real reason I like the quote is because the guy is the VP of advocacy at the American Lung Association. Is there an Anti-Lung Association? Who exactly is opposing the American Lung Association that they need a VP of policy and advocacy?
Here’s the opinion.
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All Things in Moderation 
I vividly remember in 2nd grade the “don’t smoke” lesson.
We broke into small groups, each with an empty squeeze bottle, some cotton balls, and a cigarette. Put the cotton balls in the bottom of the bottle, insert the cigarette into the top, light it and squeeze the bottle to simulate the inhalation/exhalation. You could see the smoke being pulled into the bottle. 4-5 puffs, put out the cigarette and examine the cotton balls. message received.
I can’t even fathom such a lesson today. but i plan on duplicating it at home. probably will get hauled before child protective services.
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Nova-
I do wonder how necessary these new images are. Is there really much confusion among children regarding the harm of cigarettes? It seems like the government would be better off mandating ever 2nd grader be given the lesson you were given.
As for my I’ll never smoke moment, I was at a grocery store with my family and an older gentleman was bagging the groceries. He stopped as as we were leaving. He had to speak with one of those “microphones” held up to his trachea that amplified what little voice he had left. He warned us never to smoke. To steal your phrase: “message recieved.”
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Good one, Nova. I’ll try it on my granddaughters someday. When my oldest daughter was in JHS, around 1986, her Health teacher did a series of demonstrations with goldfish. She got APD to bring various controlled substances from the evidence locker. Each week she would have the visiting cop put a different controlled substance in the tank. Coke, heroin, speed. The goldfish reacted to each, then died. Every week she had new goldfish. One week, she dumped in black coffee. Fish went into a caffeine induced frenzy. Then died. She stripped a pack of cigarettes for a fresh group of goldfish. They survived the day, but died before the next class. Finally some parents protested her “cruelty to animals”, and she was disciplined in some way.
I like your black tar experiment better.
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Mine was the day when I was five and my Evil Twin cousin and I were following my dad around (he smoked cigars at the time). He dropped a cigar butt on the ground and Evil Twin looked at me and said “I dare you!”
Picked up the cigar, inhaled a great big ol’ puff, turned about 17 shades of green and started puking while Evil Twin was rolling around on the ground laughing her little butt off. My dad turned around and said “You’ll never do that again, will you?” He was right.
Evil Twin did pick up smoking years later and then had to go through the agonies of quitting when she got pregnant (morning sickness AND nicotine withdrawal–yea!!) so I got the last laugh.
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The anti-lung association, if one could call it that, are companies that produce products or by-products that injure lungs. I’m not saying the products shouldn’t be manufactured, just that lungs don’t thrive in their presence.
It may sound bizarre but if you are a marketer or advertiser, having a tobacco company for a client develops and stretches your skills in ways you’d never imagine. These companies can’t use traditional methods to get the word out, and demand out-of-the-box thinking from their marketing and advertising partners. Hence Joe Camel.
Personally, I don’t think a photo of a damaged lung on the pack will do much to alter America’s smoking habits. We’re talking about an addictive substance and ‘rational’ approaches go only so far.
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Who exactly is opposing the American Lung Association that they need a VP of policy and advocacy?
The existence of pro-tobacco research and astroturf organizations is well documented in books like Smokescreen by Philip J. Hilts and very effectively parodied in Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley and the movie based on it.
I am very suspicious of anti-smoking campaigns sponsored by the tobacco industry because they tend to be backdoor ads for smoking itself. They often feature dorky kids bravely refusing cigarettes from the ‘cool’ kids or parents explaining why smoking is only for adults, indirectly emphasizing that smoking is both cool and ‘grown-up’.
In reality, the opposite is true. Most people who haven’t acquired a nicotine habit by age 18 will probably never get one. The barrier to entry is too high. You have to really want to get addicted to cigarettes as it takes about half a pack a day to reach habit forming levels.
The one advertising tactic prohibiting in anti-smoking ads under the state tobacco settlement is personal vilification of smoking executives. It seems the one effective tool in reducing smoking among teens (who have poorly understood senses of health risks) is telling them that cigarettes are being pushed at them by old balding corporate bigwigs.
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They often feature dorky kids bravely refusing cigarettes from the ‘cool’ kids or parents explaining why smoking is only for adults, indirectly emphasizing that smoking is both cool and ‘grown-up’.
I had never thought about the secondary (or primary) message that sort of ad sends…that cool kids smoke.
I know that there are tobacco companies and other groups that promote various things that are bad for our lungs, but there are also anti-smoking and anti-pollution groups. It just struck me as funny that we have an advocacy group for lungs. I had never realized lungs collectively lacked a voice.
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I’m not saying the products shouldn’t be manufactured, just that lungs don’t thrive in their presence.
George Will is fond of saying that cigarettes are the only legal product that when used as intended result in death.
On the other hand, in his later years Kurt Vonnegut used to jokingly threaten to sue cigarette companies for misleading him into believing he would be dead already.
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Loved Thank You for Smoking. the MOD squad.
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“It just struck me as funny that we have an advocacy group for lungs.”
If you aren’t at the table, you’re on it.
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