Or fans singing their hearts out when 4 nil down :)

Chuck you just made my day.

Or people marrying Britney Spears

That’s what I was thinking. I remember collecting the ‘best’ warnings years ago….. I’m glad I don’t smoke anymore

unfortunelty it didnt for me!! ive seen this on certain ciggie boxes before.. i went ewww thats bad.. did it stop me taking the smoke out of the box!! i wish it had.

I think it infringes on a company’s freedom of speech not fair really

@ Peter

What rubbish!
There is six sides to the carton box. They are been told to put something on part of one side? There remains all the other sides to say whatever the hell they want!

What daftness! “Freedom of speech” infringed?
Nuts!

When I was in Georgia,about 12 years ago,they had really graphic ads of lungs and all sorts. Everytime they came on we’d all go “ewwwww” and the smokers in the room would get up and head out for a smoke……doesn’t always work ;)

Dennis Leary is the jab. Just saying. The JAB.

That’s pretty transparently incorrect, factually speaking. Millions of people every year want to give up smoking but can’t break the addiction. Medical science confirms the drug itself is addictive. Telling them they just don’t “want” it enough is pretty insulting.

The physical addiction passes pretty quickly, the mental addiction is the stronger component which is harder to break hence the need for the desire to be genuine.

Very well said!

@Damocles Ok I’ve never smoked and never will but that sounds like nonsense to me. How do you explain all the people who try to quit and fail multiple times? Simply saying their desire isn’t genuine seems patronising to me. There’s people who literally smoke through holes in their necks and your telling me they just didn’t want to quit bad enough!

@Lorcan, if you’ve never smoked you’re unlikely to get it.

I quit, went back, quit, went back, and finally quit for good 5 years ago. Damocles is exactly right. People who want to quit, quit.

People who toy with the idea of quitting, wearing patches and chewing nicotine gum are people who have been brainwashed into thinking it’s hard to quit. They’re constantly re-enforced with bull like “Oh, they say it’s harder to quit than heroin”, which gives them an excuse to continue as ‘slaves’ to the cigarettes.

This goes for any kind of discipline, be it dietary, drugs, booze, whatever. Once you realise that you can’t sorta quit, cut down, only treat yourself once a while etc, then you do it. Anything else means you are not willing to give up in the first place – you’re only half motivated into thinking “I should give up” when you should realise that “I will give up”

@Rónán While I can’t argue with your personal experience or Damocles’, I can argue with broad generalisations based on your personal experience. Sure you need to genuinely want to quit to be able to quit but you can’t say everyone who fails didn’t genuinely want to quit. That’s the only point I’m trying to make.

Thank you Ronan, your perspective is much appreciated.

physical addiction passes after 24 hours. people enjoy smoking.

Agree with Damocles.
I smoked fairly heavily for years. Quitting is a matter of accepting that withdrawal is not a nice feeling and understanding that you can live happily without needing cigs. It’s like anything – once you commit yourself fully to it, it becomes easy – even the difficult parts.
For me it was either smoke or not smoke, none of that “I’m cutting down” nonsense.
When I finally decided to stop, I made sure that I had a few days to myself in which to do so. I had been smoking about 40 roll-ups a day. I gave my remaining tobacco to some homeless guys and… well… that was it.
The withdrawal was stronger than I thought they would be, but I had decided. Taking up Taiji at the time helped.
After about two weeks I didn’t think about it at all any more.
@Peter @Lorcan
So yeah – it is about not wanting it enough…. or perhaps not being realistic about how addicted you actually are.

I’m an ex smoker and when I lived in Canada they had these pictures. I studied them, as I found them interesting, while smoking a cigarette. Other attempts had pictures of sad-faced children and “think of what smoking does to your kids”. Again, I laughed and smoked.

If scaring us about our health was effective then we’d have no smoking, binge drinking, fry ups etc. This is just a waste of time that gives little quangos and task forces a reason to exist and campaign.

I would also add, Paul, that the ‘harder, starker message’ doesn’t work. It doesn’t stop kids from smoking, it doesn’t stop them from drinking, and it doesn’t stop them from trying drugs.

The majority of us overreact to the freedom that comes with emerging into adulthood, and then we try stuff and the world doesn’t end, we re-enforce that self-belief in our invincibility. We know the dangers of everything we put in our body, but we do it anyway.

This has nothing to do with warnings, health, the price of fags etc, and everything to do with culture. Examples are set in the home from an early age, and by our more adventurous peers.

Ronan, the fact’s don’t support you. Nobody will claim that *every* smoker or potential smoker will respond to this sort of thing, but the results show that *some* do, which is good enough.

Since I packed them in last June thanks to hypnosis I was only recently thinking how my account had grown and it took a minute to click that it was since I quit. Best thing I ever did for myself as I was depressing myself for maybe 5 years promising to quit, going a few days or setting dates and sticking to it but always ended back lighting up. As you say around 3k better off now and sleeping better as well. Happy days

Not a waste of time costs they state nothing cigarette companies pay for the pics if just one person doesn’t start or one person gives up then it is worth it by then way health warnings helped me quit I’d be still smoking if I tought they’re not dangerous

Its a daft idea, every smoker knows all too well the Damage it causes.. Show a smoker a diseased lung and they will just light up

(totally off topic)
Unfortunately making and then breaking promises is also not a crime – unless perhaps in contract form. AND our neo-liberal lawmakers have made that what the banks have done is probably also not a crime.
The media let them away with their broken promises far too easily. Apparently to accept anything that a politician says before an election means that you are gullible.
I feel strongly about their lies too. It seems that when a politician says, “If elected I will… ” the rest of the sentence should be completely disregarded. That makes it difficult to know the purpose of voting at all…… guess it’s a chance to see the lovely art work the kids have done in the schools.

Probably the bit where smoking is an addiction.

Yes, you’re right. Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Well, these new graphic images might get through to some smokers… But with that attitude, the rest of you are screwed.

ur missing the extra bit smokers add in their head “smoking kills, but not me”

Wouldn’t that just benefit the already well-established brands? Everyone already knows Benson and Hedges, Silk Cut, Marlboro etc., so they don’t really need to advertise anyway. If no one else can advertise then that means no one is going to take away the big brands’ market share.

That would give lower production costs to the established brands (because a plain box is cheaper to make) and it also means that consumers won’t really know their options for changing to weaker cigarettes in an attempt to wean themselves off smoking.

I’m not talking about advertising in particular. There is no such thing as cigarette advertising in this country any more. Packets aren’t allowed to be displayed nor are shops allowed to have printed adverts in store. My concern about having “graphic pictures” is that parents who smoke and have young children, their packets are on display in the home. Do we want these kids seeing the likes of blackened lungs and tar being squeezed from a vital organ?

hey , if we pay a 10er for a pack of smokes we could at least get a nice pic with it no?[/sarcasm]
lmao.

here’s a thought though.. make em really gory and then blame the next gruesome crime on smokers cause of Desensitization…

If they cared about smokers they would fund access for willing smokers to the Allen Carr Clinic, it’ll never happen cause it actually works.

Agreed.(I am a non smoker supporting freedom of choice)

I think anyone who thinks the ultimate end goal here isn’t a total smoking ban is a bit naive to be honest. And a total smoking ban will, when it comes, be a *good* thing.

The reality is that if we knew then what we know now the sale of cigarettes would never have been legal in the first place. The problem, when we did find out, was that society was already addicted and going cold turkey would never have worked and been disasterous in a number of ways. So, instead, society is weaning itself off the fags: as each decade goes by more restrictions on smoking come in and fewer take up smoking.

The aim here is to have our children’s children have to say “What’s that in his mouth, grandad?” when they see an old film, because they’ll never have seen anyone smoking, or cigarettes, with their own eyes. And that’s a GOOD aim.

@Peter won’t happen, too much profit is made in tax

The tax gained on fags will be likewise gained by the govt on the other things cigarette smokers will spend their money on, and the savings on the health spend would be enormous i reckon

A lot of smokers when they see research that says it kills think ‘ah yeah sure it’ll only take a few years off me’ if they see something graphic it might scare them off it, it worked in NI, according to statistics I read.

Come to think of it I recall at least two “oldest people” news items where they were smoking their brains out. :)

92 and smoked all her life?And younger generations are supposed to be more right than older ones according to the NANNY STATE.

Like prohibition? Because that worked really well.

Banning it would not stop people smoking. It would just hand the tobacco industry to organised criminals.

You think?
There’s already a huge amount of lost revenue because of people buying contraband. Buying illegal smokes is fairly commonplace.
Personally I think banning smoking would just drive it under-ground and perhaps even make it “cool” again.

They should ‘age out’ smoking. Raise the age limit every year to stop new people from starting to smoke until eventually its gone forever. Or require a current smokers ID to buy them. Its idealistic I know and would affect tourists but maybe they could get a tourists smokers card….

Prohibition is cited alot but it’s a false parallel. For a start it was introduced suddenly, absolutely, rather than phased in over multiple generations. That’s the MAIN reason a complete smoking ban will succeed (when ultimately brought in) while US alcohol prohibition failed.

The secondary reason, of course, is that alcohol is, like a lot of things, unharmful when taken in moderation and even connected with benefits in various ways (again, when taken in moderation) while cigarettes are purely harmful and there is no ‘moderation’ in which they can be safely consumed.

Why is it a false parallel when Stephen wrote “Ban it outright, that’d stop smoking!”, it’s an entirely valid parallel.

Because, as I explained, the situations aren’t parallel. You’re trying to suggest that a complete ban on smoking – when it ultimately comes in in God knows how many years’ time – will fail for the same reasons that the ban on alcohol in the US failed. But the reasons that alcohol ban failed don’t apply to the banning of smoking at all.

Peter, In the context of the comment that Stephen made which is the one to which I am referring it is an entirely valid parallel.

In the context of a gradual ban which you are mooting it may not be.

But the gradual ban you are mooting and the immediate ban Stephen is mooting are two different things.

Nope. Because we’re ALREADY IN THE PROCESS of a gradual ban. Unless someone’s talking about going back in time to before 1964 and introducing a complete ban at that point, then there’s no valid parallel.

Perhaps you could avail yourself of a dictionary and consider the word “outright”.

I’ll never understand why people smoke?!? Maybe somebody could make me a bit wiser?

@toirealach
Because it’s massively addictive. Nicotine is apparently more addictive than heroine and used to be seen as cool. Often taken up as part of a peer group.
The PR Edward Bernays (nephew of Freud)made smoking “cool” for women using his celebrated and infamous PR stunt where he told the press that “Suffragettes will be lighting torches of freedom”. http://www.infectiousvideos.com/index.php?p=showvid&sid=1117&fil=0000000056&o=0&idx=6&sb=daily&a=playvid&r=Torches_of_Freedom
Of course we’re all too sophisticated for that sort of brain washing now….. aren’t we? :P

Toirealach, Smoking acts as an expectorant and gives a man’s voice a cool gravelly tone that women just can’t resist.

the revenue wouldn’t be needed as there would be saving in the health system to counter balance it

There would only be a saving in the health system after the last ex-smoker has died. By then, and that could be 50 years from now, there is another group being a burden on the health system.

can someone show me the statistics that say smoking related health problems cause more to the exchequer than smokers pay in tax? because if you can’t back up your argument it’s redundant

Hi Paula,
I’ve let the technical team know about your problem in accessing the Roy Keane poll – could you let me know if you’re using a PC or a Mac?
Thanks,
Jennifer

@ Paula – How rude!!