A few hours ago I took a survey asking me to look at some anti‐tobacco warnings and then estimating how many tobacco smokers vs. non‐smokers will suffer the risks.
I don’t think that grown‐ups take up smoking simply because they’re unaware of just how awful it is for them. I think that they usually turn to smoking because it’s a crude coping mechanism and they don’t love living. Think about it: if life sucks anyway, how much difference would avoiding an unhealthy habit like smoking make?
Reducing tobacco consumption is a fine goal, but anti‐tobacco groups (or at least the ones that I’ve seen) go about it completely the wrong way. I think that raising living standards, or maybe even just messages with more positivity and empathy, would have a more substantial effect than giant warnings and photos of hideously deformed organs.
The tobacco lobby won’t let the products be outright banned. A bourgeoisie democracy won’t raise living standards without pushing from socialists.
When I was a kid (I think about 7 or 8, but idk it was a very long time ago) I saw many anti-smoking posters, particularly near hospitals and universities.
The posters in question? An image called “The Smoker’s Body” and for the sake of your appetite I would strongly advise against looking that up. When I first saw it, I got dreams of it showing up in my house lmao
Stuff like that is probably the best way to keep kids from smoking. Just showing how gross the human body will become from years of poison. Putting images on cartons is a really good idea
deformed sperm omg
Personally I started smoking at 18 knowing full well how bad it is for you, as did all of my friends who smoke(d). It was absolutely a coping mechanism - smoking became a way to capture the near-undivided social attention of others and the nicotine buzz felt taboo and semi-euphoric.
I only stopped very recently and it’s pretty much only because I’m passionate about maintaining a healthy singing voice and I could feel the weight in my throat and lungs killing me. I still vape. Nicotine’s the devil, but I’ll just offer that the anti-smoking tactics didn’t do a thing for me… and I always thought those “radical” anti-smoking ads from truth. or whatever were cringe as shit. If one came on I’d light up a cigarette to spite them lol.
Yeah but it’s be against corporate interests for living standard to get better so that’s not how people will fight it under capitalism
Fun fact: The US has by far the lowest rates of tobacco consumption among exploiter states and still has easily the worst health outcomes overall. The massive drop in tobacco usage in the US is one of the big public health “victories” and has basically done nothing to improve population health overall.
Is smoking still seen as cool by teenagers and younger people? The only benefit I could see to the in your face commercials that hype up the health risks with smoking is to counter that social perception that smoking is cool, but I’m not sure that they’re still considered cool by a lot of people.
Vaping was seen in Poland as cool for few years, but thankfully lately i seen less people producing big smoke clouds straight in my face. Cigarettes are declining steadily, way less 20-30 year old people here smokes than 40+
In the US my impression is it’s successfully taboo, but I’m sure some people still do it because of that or something else. I think vaping is considered much “cooler” at this point.
Well they do what’s within their abilities.
It’s better than nothing. I haven’t read any studies about it but my assumption is that it encourages zero people to smoke and dissuades a non-zero number of people from smoking. Whether it by itself is enough is a different question but there is no harm in disseminating messages about the health harms of smoking.
It is true that widespread smoking is a symptom of deeper societal malaise and the political strength of the tobacco industry. Efforts concentrated at swaying individuals into making the choice to not smoke will be limited in effect. But reminders of the dangers of tobacco use are fine in my opinion even if they are not complete on their own.
some people mistakenly think it helps with ptsd, but it actually worsens it
Hard disagree. I don’t think societies are doing enough to combat tobacco use, and they should be more aggressive. So many butts on the ground near where I live, it’s disgusting. They don’t decompose and get into water sources. Thank god I wasn’t born 20 years earlier and had to suffer through second hand smoke in buildings. People don’t really ‘turn’ to smoking, they try it and they are addicted.
I mean, the occasional cigar is cool but not worth the huge societal negatives. I think they should do what one country did and effectively ban smoking for people born after a certain date. Though of course the capitalists will fight that tooth and nail.
