Happy Halloween
Friday, October 31, 2008 Just in from De Havilland, Forest's parliamentary monitors: "The Department of Health is to launch a new television campaign on Halloween which aims to alert youngsters and their parents to something very real to be frightened of. The latest stage of the government's anti-smoking campaign intends to give people in the West Midlands sleepless nights by driving home the scariest aspects of smoking, such as the impact on health, the poisonous contents of cigarettes and ultimately the effect dying will have on those they leave behind.
"Paul Hooper, regional tobacco policy manager for the Department of Health West Midlands, said: 'This new campaign doesn't pull any punches. The messages in the advertisement and the new images on the sides of cigarette packets are specifically designed to make people uncomfortable and point to where help can be obtained.'
"Among the hard-hitting messages the region's health chiefs are trying to
get across are:
- Smokers die younger
- Smoking can cause a slow and painful death
- Smoking causes fatal lung cancer
- Smoking causes heart attacks and strokes
- Smoking causes ageing of the skin
- Smoking can decrease fertility
- Smoking can cause impotence
- Smoke contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen
cyanide.
"Halloween is a day where it is fun to be scared," said Hooper. "However, when it comes to smoking there is a very real danger to be frightened of that can lead to death and serious illness."
As Nick Ross, former presenter of Crimewatch, used to say, "Don't have nightmares, do sleep well."
Reader Comments (14)
* Smokers live longer
* Drugs can cause a slow and painful death
* Car Exhausts cause fatal lung cancer
* Lying Governments cause heart attacks and strokes
* Coal-mining causes ageing of the skin
* Two bottles of Gin a day can decrease fertility
* Smoking can increase your sex drive
* Tap water contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen
cyanide.
I have one of the most depressing nights from a civil liberties point of view. My understanding is that councils can make it compulsory for private venues to carry CCTV and compulsory for it to be handed over for their inspection. I have just got home from a bar in London and the jackboots landed.
Simon, on Sunday I hope I can expand on this on Sunday night, or if you are busy I can drop ou a line.
When you see civil liberties crushed first hand, an early death from smoking may well be a blessing.
Everybody should complain to the ASA to the effects on children. Nightmares and getting really upset if their parents smoke. Children should not be used like this.
I wonder why they can say 'causes' for some of them, when it is more correct to say 'can' as they do in others. It is like saying "Driving causes fatal accidents".
OT, but Tom Harris MP's blog is worth a look today ('Orwellian Nightmare...') Enjoy.
Well said Peter - the one you did forget was that both the sun and sunbeds cause the skin to age, as well as possibly causing cancer!
Government are probably trying to work out how to ban the sun!
This is not adversely affecting youngsters though who go out and get sun burnt or spend much time each week on sunbeds.
I thought that there was a law against this sort of thing!
Peter, tap water does indeed contain these chemicals. Unfortunately, I pointed this out in an earlier posting on this site. The point is,that in tap water these chemicals are at least 2000% greater than in tobacco. This lunatic should be shown up for what he is and not acting in the interests of peoples' health. I suspect he is in the employ of the 'Pharmies'.
It would be much better if Peter's warnings were put on cig packets.
Remember the govt have to justify the wages they give to the health nazi quangos they appointed to keep our eye off the ball while they f**k up the economy and make disastrous decisions and keep the masses off their backs, like ban smoking and drinking and keep the punters out of the pubs where they can gather together and compare notes or better still get rid of the pubs altogether.
On a different note, from the media frenzy (at least in ireland) over the american elections, we can all sit back and relax if Obama gets elected as they are proclaiming him to be the next messiah whose going to change everything for the best. I wonder does he smoke?
"However, when it comes to smoking there is a very real danger to be frightened of that can lead to death and serious illness." (Paul Hooper)
Is this the most fatuous sentence ever?
Dangers, by definition, are to be frightened of and can lead to death and serious illness. Are there dangers that are not real? Does smoking inherently present a universal danger? Is it the only danger or the most dangerous danger in life? Smokers don't drop dead like flies and might reasonably be expected to take sensible action if they find that smoking is affecting their health.
Smokers are constantly being derided as foolish for risking their health but is there anything more foolish than continuing to talk up the risks to an audience which has heard it a hundred times before?
Will someone please take their batteries out.
ann. Obama is a closet smoker. Clinton was a smoker and so is Arnnie, who supports smoking bans.
Yes, Obama was quite open about his smoking until about a year or so ago apparently. I believe it was on the advice of his wife that he 'gave up' as it was going to be detrimental to his campaign. As soon as the press began to get pictures of him with a cigarette in his mouth! Anyway, I have also read that his power of delivery seemed to lose the edge a bit when he did not have his cigs to help him keep calm and focused when writing his speeches and planning his campaign. He suddenly seemed to perk up a bit again though. It seems that, as chas said, he has become a closet smoker. I can think of other men in the public eye who smoked in private, Martin Luther King for example.
Is this the same 'Paul Hooper' who used to work for ASH? (Or maybe still does simultaneously?)
I have only just been able to do this as I have been travelling all over the country this week. When travelling we listed to Gold radio (used to be Capital Gold). My husband and I have become sick to death of hearing the government's latest tacky anti smoking advertising campaign so I made a mental note to do something about it rather than just moan every time I heard it.
I have posted the following complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority and I quote:
I am complaining about the Governments new anti smoking radio advertising campaign in its inappropriate use of children to blackmail people into giving up smoking. The advertisement uses a child's voice, who says she is not scared of spiders (amongst a list of other things she is not scared of) but she is scared her mother will die because she smokes. This advertisement is an abuse of children by using them as pawns in such a campain and misleading by the implication that all mother's will die if they smoke (which is not the case). It could cause children nightmares about losing their mothers. This is tantamount to hypocricy by a Government that sets itself up to care about the welfare of young children by using them to do their dirty work for them. All advertisements of an emotionally blackmailing nature should be stopped forthwith.
I would encourage as many members of FOREST to do the same. Their website is easy to navigate:
asa.org.uk
Go to contact us and you can register your complaint on line.
If enough complain along similar lines hopefully they will ban this kind of campaign in the future.