Warning signs
Friday, September 26, 2008 Tomorrow morning I shall be on Radio Four News (at 5.30am!) and Radio Wales (8.15) reacting to the graphic health warnings that will appear on cigarette packets from the beginning of October. (Five Live is also doing an item on the subject - around 7.30am - but they're using an advertising guy from Saatchi and Saatchi who will argue that shock ads don't work.) Then, later in the morning, I'm doing a piece for ITV News.
My response to graphic health warnings is quite simple: we support measures that educate people about the health risks of smoking, but these pictures are designed not just to educate but to shock and coerce people to give up a legal product. They are unnecessarily intrusive, gratuitously offensive, and yet another example of smokers being singled out for special attention.
To paraphrase David Hockney, this is yet another step towards the uglification of Britain.
Simon Clark
Oh, I forgot ... I shall also be on the Gabby Logan Show on Five Live on Sunday morning ... and the Today programme tomorrow morning.
Simon Clark
I got bumped from Five Live this morning, but at least it allowed me to set off for Birmingham a bit earlier. I have just checked into my hotel - watch this space!
Reader Comments (43)
Now that the 'public consultation' has given them the right answer, (my gardener had not even heard of it), and the next piece of legislation is passed to place tobacco products under the counter in plain packaging, what will happen to the new pictures?
What is more worrying is the IMPLICATION that the ghastly specimen on the right MUST belong to a smoker.
In fact, it could just as easily belong to a lifelong NON-smoker.............
Clearly, 'subliminal advertising' is fine - just as long as the 'product' being sold is Health and Eternal Youth (with a subtle promise of Immortality), and it's the State that's flogging it.
And I thought our Masters were getting worried about people living TOO long...........
Sorry, folks - I'm getting confused (No, Baroness Warnock - not THAT 'confused' !)
This is nothing more than smoking pornography, would we show a picture of young lady in a state of undress displaying her charms in a gratuitous fashion?
I have no problems in pointing out the dangers of active smoking but when Sir (?) Liam Donaldson shows us a profile of the fat deposits in his chin on a McDonalds Big Mac box this just desends into cheap bullying.
Yes I can spell descend, just back from the pub.
Sorry I am with wine tonight. I understand that photo with diseased lung is that of a non smoker. I think it is non smoker who has died of lung cancer, let me try and track it down.
Here are images of lungs and the "heathy" lung looks just as bad as the one in the photo.
http://stormianne.blogspot.com/2006/03/lung-cancer.html
Good idea these photos - as with the other anti smoking legislation and education in recent years.
If they had been around 30 years ago I would have given up then, and would have been far healthier now. Pity
I don't need to see pictures to form an opinion and/or make a decision.
Dave -
Quite !
Thanks - you've saved me the trouble, anyway.
IN VINO VERITAS.....................
Buy shares in companies that make cigarette cases...
I'll certainly be 'decanting' my cigs when these graphics are introduced.
How about free Forest cigarette cases, Simon, for smokers who object to being forced to collude in the singling out and plugged on the shows on which you speak about the graphics?
I bought a nice black leather box a couple of years ago in anticipation of these pictures. Takes my packet easily. I'd buy shares in the company who makes them if I didn't think this miserable lot will ban this next.
What surprises me most is idiots like Sir Liam actually don't give a toss for the lives of those living in this country. His only reason to supply such propaganda is to try and justify his income from the State.
We have a government intending to push up the age of retirement on the pretence that people are living longer and it has become a drain on the coffers and yet they claim that by giving up smoking we will all live longer.
I think its about time people in this Country started to think for themselves instead of being conned by 'Satan's Disciples.'
Are these "Health" warnings legal? after all, misleading advertising isn't legal...I am thinking of the warning " smoking affects your health and others round you". since the World Health Organisations report into the effects of environmental tobacco smoke states that no evidence explicitly linking EST to lung disease could be found, and it is impossible to carry out a double blind test, there can be no justification on this message from a scientific viewpoint.
As a scientist and mathematician I find these health scares and the unjustified orthodoxy of anti-smoking deeply offensive to the intellect.
I'd like to know how much has this all cost?
How much has been spent on anti-smoking campaigns, payment for anti-smoking health persecutors, smoke police, other jobs related to purging smokers and smoking from society etc...
How much of the NHS budget has gone on TV hate campaigns and other advertising over the last 30 odd years .... and how does this figure compare with the so-called cost of treating smokers in the NHS.
Let's not forget, all the anti-smoking health campaigns were supposed to save the NHS loadsa money by prevention rather than cure ... it wasn't supposed to become an industry itself based on inciting smoker hatred.
What a load of selfish garbage this organisation is. Please feel free to smoke, to kill yourself slowly, to poison your kids' lungs and to ruin the air of anyone around you.
Nothing makes me smile more to see you addicts huddled around your gas heater (far too kind and a waste of gas) shivering away. I've got an idea - why not stop then you can enjoy your lives (whatever years the carbon monoxide leaves you with) - no you can't - you are weak and pathetic individuals.
You go on about rights - what about the rights of artistes, staff and other unfortunate people who have the strength not to be addicted??
I wish you were denied treatment along with other drug addicts, then you would naturally die off and the world could be a happier place without you lot stinking of fags and whining.
Well the contribution from Oxygen Breather just about sums up the anti-smoker - high in vitriol, low in truthful facts, high in bigotry and largely based on hysteria. We should thank OB for his contribution to what is meant to be an intelligent debate - you and your sort have shown your true colours!!
And which planet do you live on, Oxygen breather? Is it the one where no-one cheats, lies, beats up their wives/husbands/partners, throws up in the street after boozing too much, urinates in phone boxes after throwing up, murders, rapes, steals, is foul-mouthed, loud-mouthed, rude, intolerant, bigoted and stupid?
If you think that the worst of society's ills is smoking then you are either incredibly intolerant or incredibly stupid.
By the way, OB, nothing would please me more if you and your like-minded friends were to find a nice, faraway island on which to live happily instead of contaminating this one with your petty-minded intolerance and prejudice which I find extremely objectionable.
OB, you're very obviously a troubled soul. Lonely are you? No wonder! Your words betray your ugliness, now scuttle back beneath your rock and don't feel the need to return anytime soon. The stench of self-righteousness is not pleasant.
Thanks Oxygen breather.You've just confirmed the sort of ignorant, nasty and indoctrinated mindset that we're all fighting. It's good to be reminded now and again.
Re: OB
This repugnant little fascist tick begins the fact-free tantrum by accusing others of selfishness, before displaying the kind of overweening myopic and cruel selfishness typical of the zealot-mindset: wishing death on those who don't see the world through the same propagandised glasses.
I've decanted my ciggies into a case for years - since the silly health warnings first appeared. I have 2 rather nice silver ones for my dunhills and an adorable one with a picture of Maralyn Monroe on the front for my regals.BTW Did anyone see the shocking news that Paul Newman hs died of lung cancer (he smoked, you know) at the crually premature age of 83?
BTW to the twerp also known as Obnoxious Buffoon....
The air we inhale is roughly 78% by volume nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.96% argon and 0.04% carbon dioxide, helium, water, and other gases. The atmosphere in space suits and space ships is pure oxygen.
So why not sod off to another planet - where you clearly belong.
OB. I take it that everything you do in your life poses absolutely no inconvince or danger to anyone else…. Thought not.
If you can be bothered to look beyond having a go at smokers, perhaps you will see there are far worse things going on in this world than someone having a fag.
Dear Oxygen-Breather,
Thank you for your nice letter and kind thoughts.
It could almost have been written by a Grown-Up.
Jolly well-done !
I DO hope Daddy lets you use his computer again soon (though you're probably sleeping as I type this).
There WERE one or two grammatical errors (which you may not yet have covered in school), but we can discuss them later.............
Please don't deprive us of your company just yet - or have you run out of breath ? (Ha! Ha! - only joking).
Don't forget to wash behind your ears and say your prayers, will you ?
I have a very sensitive stomach. Ever since I was a child, I have not been able to tolerate anything squeamish. If I flick channels and see a clip of an operation or similar, I'm heaving and retching and close to fainting. Therefore, these images are going to make me ill.
My solution? A non-squeamish friend will stick labels over them, so that I won't be put through such discomfort. I refuse to be forced to throw up by the government.
Dear Oxygen-Breather,Thank you for your nice letter and kind thoughts. It could almost have been written by a Grown-Up.Jolly well-done .. " Martin V
Ah, typical response from a Forest supporter. Even more childish than the original post.
This is why Forest is not taken more seriously. I do not support their views (having watched three members of my family die from cigarette smoke - possibly from mine).
However, my media background tells me that Holier than Thou, sarcastic posts destroy the credibility of the poster, not the person being insulted.
Forest have lost the fight, but they should try and go down honourably.
oxyen breather why dont you go and get stuffed people like you make me far more sicker then any fag can do. I would like to ask do you live in an oxygen tent all day long so you dont have to breath in car fumes airoplane fumes train fumes or do you go around with an oxygen mask on all day you stupid fascist.I bet you dont have many friends i am not surprised you creep.You dont happen to be related to gordon brown do you??????
Hey guys, I dont want to aggravate anything, I'm not here to fight.Just wanted to highlight the point behind the smoking ban was quite simple - to cut down the cost of treatment of smoking related diseases such as lung cancer, emphysema and COPD, by prevention. As I'm sure you're all aware the NHS budget is stretched as it is, and this was thought to be a way of tackling this - a strategy which has thus far worked. As did the written messages on packets before it, the stats are out there if you don't believe me. So why not try and make a bit more difference by adding the images, which have already been proven to work in other countries? We can free up the budget a bit more and use that money elsewhere, where it is desparately needed.
And I also have to say I don't think smokers are being singled out as so many of you think - a lot of money has also been spent on healthier eating campaigns to tackle obesity and all the diseases linked with that.
Anyway, as I say, I dont want to fight or provoke a reaction. Just merely stating my point of view. I've personally not got anything against smokers at all and do believe in freedom of choice. Im just trying to explain the rationale behind these campaigns.
Joss, I'd like to remind you that tobacco is a legal product and smoking a legal activity, despite which smokers are constantly subjected to harassment, bullying and the repugnant intolerance (exeplified by OB) which has resulted from the hysteria whipped up by the Government and the tobacco control lobby and colluded in by the media.
Perhaps before you dismiss Forest, you might like to look into the scam that is 'passive smoking'. If you do you can't fail to realise that second-hand smoke has never killed anyone. As for active smoking, I'm very glad that Forest exists to remind the powers that be that use of a legal product, in a free society, should remain a matter of individual choice and that Government's role should be confined to education in the facts about the risks involved. I think that is an eminently grown-up position to take. If Forest's view is ignored, I would suggest that this is because this Government refuses to listen to any views that don't mirror its own. As for Forest giving in gracefully, why the hell should it pander to the hysteria which would die if another government were to stop the relentless war on smoking? This government will be gone long before Forest.
Jonny: I wish more anti smokers would post here more so we can have a debate. On costs of smoking, here are the facts.
2006 cost of NHS treatment to smokers = £1.7 billion.
Revenue received from taxation = £9.6 billion.
Research from the Netherlands into the lifetime costs of a smoker = £165,000
Costs of non smoker = £224,000
I have not factored in, because smokers die earlier we claim less state pensions, corporation taxes that tobacco companies pay, employers and employees NI etc etc.
Considering we pay at least 10x what we cost and the Labour Party have the audacity to stop us from smoking in pubs, I am sure you can understand why we are angry.
No taxation without representation. No smoking in pubs, no Labour government.
Jonny wrote:
As did the written messages on packets before it, the stats are out there if you don't believe me. So why not try and make a bit more difference by adding the images, which have already been proven to work in other countries
Could you give a link to the stats? In Ireland smoking is increasing for the first time in years.
In which countries has it been proven to work? Canada, where the kids collected and traded the cards?
Smoking carries risk, driving a car carried risk. The one thing that separates them (for the time being) is HMG want people to stop smoking a legal product. Paradoxicaly they want to retain the revenue.
Maybe they will put images of car wrecks on new cars to encourage you to drive less and safer?
Or perhaps we should see damaged liver pics on a beer bottle to encourage healthy drinking?
Do you notice whenever it is suggested that advertising be cut back on alcohol they say it doesn't work? Or when they suggest putting warning labels on wine etc they say it will not reduce binge drinking? Yet with smoking all these things are said to work. So people who smoke are being singled out (at the moment).
west
----
Jonny
Unlike ASH and other antismokers, we accept everyone to speak on this site.
However, why don't you think over a few simple facts first before continuing putting your views over as they stand.
Sir Liam stated on tv that 70% of smokers want to give up. If so he doesn't explain where he gets these figures. The problem with this antismoking crusade is that they do not intend to offer factual evidence to support there claim.
If you consider that up until the 70's more and more people smoked. However, it is only now that people are dying like flies according to them. What has increased since then that causes such ill health? The simple answer the increased use of oil based fuels. There is more use of these fuels: cars use them and aeroplanes use them and then there's central heating. All of these have increased in this time.
Sir Liam made the point that there were chemicals in tobacco smoke that caused these illnesses. What he was careful to omit was that these chemicals were also present in all drinking water in this Country. The reason being that in tap water these chemicals are 2000% greater in quantity.
In the early days of this antismoking propaganda we were first told it was the nicotine and then it was the tar. lately it is the carciogens which are being blamed. Strange that the latter is now being branded the guilty party since in 1998, an antismoking researcher, Jill Pell informed this government and other organisations that carciogens are not present in tobacco smoke. Where do these carciogens come from? simple oil based fuels.
Prior to the election of 2005 politicians wanted a partial ban which most would have accepted. Why was it changed? Quite simple. Labour chose to impose a women candidate in a safe Labour of Blaenau Gwent. What was the outcome? They lost it heavily. The same has happened in other consituencies. Their attitude is to bring out even more dictates.
Joss,
I'm sorry that - as a 'typical' (?) Anti-Smoker - you are unable to allow a little irony in response to an ignorant, ill-informed, and mean-spirited bit of bigotry such as that displayed above.
Naturally, I regret the deaths in your family. But how do you KNOW that they were 'caused' by SHS ? You DON'T, of course..............
The fact that three 'family members' died could just as easily point to a genetic pre-disposition to their ailments.
If you made the effort to peak above the parapet of your Immaculate Prejudice, you would see that 'typical' FOREST supporters (and I've rarely encountered a more intelligent, humane, and well-informed group of people on any site) are merely asking for some degree of CHOICE - for both smoker AND non-smoker alike.
That means choice for YOU, too, Joss.
Who are YOU to find that SO offensive ?
And, if you're keen on using Moral Blackmail as a debating ploy (something I usually deplore), then how would YOU explain to the kind, gentle, 88 year-old ex-bomber navigator who had half his leg shot off whilst taking a night-trip over to Bremen back in '44, that he SHOULD be denied the solace of his pipe and his pint down at my local ? What a fine reward for the sacrifice of his youth (and the lives of many of his young friends) - to be treated as a social outcast and a criminal.
Well, nobody's seen him since last July. Good riddance, eh ? We don't need HIS sort around - contaminating the sterile atmosphere of the New Master Race with his Erinmore and his loneliness........(he's probably too selfish to use low-energy lightbulbs, as well).
Sorry, Joss, but it's time to face FACTS - even if you DO have a 'background in the media' to go with what seems like a misguided Sense of Guilt:
a) ALL the CREDIBLE scientific evidence points
to little or no risk of lung cancer (etc)
from this source - as you would appreciate if
you had bothered to do any REAL 'research'.
b) ALL the statistics about 'Smoking-Related
Diseases' are entirely BOGUS - derived as
they are from smokers and non-smokers alike.
If a crofter from the Shetlands, who had
never smoked or been 'exposed' to tobacco
fumes his entire life, went to Edinburgh to
spend his final days in an oxygen tent, HIS
death from (say) emphysema would count as a
'Smoking-Related Death'.
c) Propaganda is not Truth, Junk Science is not
True Science, and the (currently)
FASHIONABLE distaste for Tobacco among the
more timid and gullible members of the
Middle Class is NOT sufficient reason to
trample on the freedom of MILLIONS (whose
NET contribution to the Exchequer is
considerably greater than that of your non-
smoking friends)
Hope that wasn't TOO 'Holier Than Thou' or 'childish' a response.................(I'd HATE to sound like a 'typical' Anti-Smoker)
Anti-smokers should have health warnings on them. Anti-smoking affects your eyesight and makes it difficult to read the truth.
Herr Oxygen Breather must think he's going to live forever disease free, I suppose traffic pollution, water contamination, alcohol poisining dont come into the equation in his scheme of things. He probably thinks he's perfect but I very much doubt it with his hate filled comments.
OB you have a cheek calling us smokers whingers when you and your nazi friends have it all your own way since the smoking ban, what have you to complain about with your smoke free indoor pubs and restaurants. I have noticed that you and your ilk are the very ones that DONT sit indoors enjoying your smoke free atmosphere, No you'd rather torment us poor smokers further by taking up what little seating is available to us by smugly sitting outdoors with your avian water in the hope that smokers interesting and jolly personalities might rub off on you, because you nerdy pc brigade types usually have nil personalities and find your own company of like minded bores have nothing to say anyway.
Get a life, your not going to live forever, your type aint going to be missed anyhow.
"However, my media background tells me that Holier than Thou, sarcastic posts destroy the credibility of the poster, not the person being insulted."
Joss accuses smokers of having "holier than thou attitudes" when they rightly defend their habit (not addiction) and try to put the issue into perspective when it comes to affects on health.
Sadly it is the mostly sanctimonious and puritan attitude of the anti-smokers that has persuaded an already biased Govt to persecute smokers and purge them from society.
Even if I believed the fraud that is passive smoking, I don't believe that Joss, Jonny, or OB, can argue that choice would not address their concerns.
.. and before anyone mentions the rights of "artistes, staff, etc.." not to breathe in smoke at work, there are currently smoking pub staff and artistes who are losing their jobs hand over fist as the cull of the British traditional pub continues.
Employers can currently advertise jobs to non-smokers, choice would have meant that smoking bars could also advertise for smokers only.
Whatever arguments and outrageous claims the antis make, they cannot justify removing choice which should never be a radical idea in a truly free country.
Choice really is the bottom line and the bridge between the views of smokers and anti-smokers.
"Forest have lost the fight, but they should try and go down honourably..", says Joss..
I'm afraid Joss, smokers have only just started to fight back in defence. You aint seen nothing yet!
We have politely accepted all of the restrictions, myths, and assualts upon our character for decades but it is only now that we are standing up and saying enough because the anti view has gone too far and encroaches upon our freedoms and the very foundations of our culture!
Anti-smokers have had 40 years to implant their prejudices in the British psyche... People are only just becoming aware of Forest ... but watch this space.. it is not the only organisation working to finally get the truth of this spiteful ban out there.
It is the antis who should now hang their heads and "try and go down honourably".
Bear, How do you know you would be far healthier now if you had given up smoking 30 years ago by looking at a photo of a lung. There are about a thousand things you can do that proposes to make you live longer but sadly there are no guarantees, its even doubtful if you can influence fate but you certainly cant decide your fate.
We are getting all this information from so called experts but on a personal level more than half of my friends are now dead and only one was a smoker. Life is not that simple.
Personally I think a person would have a happier and fuller life if they were stress free and living in a more tolerant society. There seems to be a lot of hatred and bigotry around.
My, Forest and the Freedom Zone seem to be getting the antis all hot and bothered. They're like buses, you don't see one here for months and then three come along at once.
To be fair, it must be frustrating for them seeing so many influential political names lining up to stick pins in the anti-choice bubble.
Bless. ;-)
I might worry if smokers' lungs actually looked like this but they don't and neither is the tar from cigarettes black; it's clear.
The antismoking lobby is getting truly desperate what with smoking rates up everywhere despite all their nonsense. Yes, time for the anti-smokers to get real by acquainting them selves with the truth instead of fiction, and by getting off the lying anti-smoker bandwagon. It's a lost cause and next year the bandwagon's wheels are going to come off altogether.
Hey antis, isn't it nice to know that after all your very sick efforts you're fighting a lost cause!
Everybody -
Perhaps we should - from time to time - re-acquaint our more zealous Anti-Smoking Crusaders
with Ambrose Bierce's excellent definition of
PREJUDICE:
"A VAGRANT OPINION WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS OF SUPPORT"
Sums up their position pretty well, I think !
Joss, if as you say you come from a media backround I am taken aback when you denigrate Forest. Only for user friendly forums such as this, disenfranchised minorities like smokers would not have a voice to debate the harsh regimes that are being inflicted upon people in these crazy times.
People, are being made to feel guilty for smoking and being blamed for causing deaths. What better scare tactics could you use to change people's habits in double quick time than the big guilt trip.
Forest gives people the opportunity to debate with like minded people who see through the sham, people who instead of putting on black armbands bring the dabate to govt level.
Maybe the government should put warnings on all other products with associated health risks.
Products containing Saturated fat - butter beef lard etc - might have this message:
Consumption of this product may significantly increase the risk of coronary heart disease, Atherosclerosis and strokes
Products containing Sugar - Consumption of this product may significantly increase the risk of dental erosion, diabetes, obesity, gout or cancer
Alcohol - Consumption of this product may significantly increase the risk of cirrhosis of the liver, and cancers of the mouth oesophagus, pharynx, larynx and liver
Coffee - Consumption of this product may significantly increase the risk of magnesium deficiency, high blood pressure and damage the lining of the gastrointestinal organs, causing gastritis and ulcers
Chili - Consumption of this product may significantly increase the risk of stomach cancer and gastroesophageal reflux disease
PVC and certain plastics -
Use and handling of this product may expose the consumer to phalates which may have certain health risks. Minimal handling is recommended
Salt - Over consumption of this product increases the risk of health problems, including high blood pressure
red meat and processed meat - Consumption of this product may increase the risk of cancers of the lung, oesophagus, liver, colon breast, stomach and prostate among others. May also increase risks of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, arthritis and bone loss
The list of risks in life is never ending, starting from the moment of birth. The government, and everyone else, should stop the constant erosion of what few freedoms we still have. Oh, scrub that, we should fight for all our lost freedoms.