When I was living in Nova Scotia, someone turned the ugly images into a business opportunity—he made and sold covers for cigarette boxes.  So this might at least help the economy

Personally, I found the image of smoking as ‘cool’ to be a huge disincentive, since I didn’t like the cool kids. YMMV

Hafta disagree:

“1950 was a significant year for cigarette manufacturers and cigarette consumers, for it was during that year that a major study showed the link between smoking and lung cancer. Understandably, this was an important medical finding, and it was published at a time when it was estimated that more than half of the United States’ population smoked. A half century later, the connection between smoking and cancer is common knowledge and most likely contributes to the fact that today only 19.8% of Americans smoke.”
http://www.smokingstatistics.org/Smoking_Statistics_Since_1950.asp

Both of my parents smoked in the 1950s: Camels for my mother, pipe for my father. However, at some point as more and more evidence came out, my father quit, cold turkey. And has stayed off the obnoxious weed for another 50 years, despite marrying chain-smoking stepmother. (Also: his father, my grandfather, died in the ‘70s of a lung/brain cancer combination at 78, which is young in our family.)

There’s probably also a correlation between bans on public smoking (and other social restrictions) and rates:

“By 2008, the states with the lowest percentage of smokers were Utah with 11.7, California with 14.3, Massachusetts with 16.4, Minnesota with 16.5, Washington with 16.8, Oregon with 16.9, Rhode Island and Hawaii with 17, and New Jersey with 17.1. On the other hand, the states with the highest percentage of smokers are Kentucky with 28.2, West Virginia with 26.9, Oklahoma with 25.8, Missouri with 24.5, and Tennessee with 24.3.

In 1950, smoking was permitted in public places; as of July 2009, twenty-four states prohibit smoking in most public places, protecting the public from a very preventable disease.”

In this case, you are demonstrably wrong unless the American public is radically different from the Canadian one.

Canada was the first country to introduce them in 2001 and studies done since then (in Canada and other countries that use similar labels) since then have shown that (a) the warnings are obviously more noticeable, (b) make people think more about the risks than text only, and (c) have been cited by quitters as being one of their motivations to do so.

The pictures due become less effective over time as you see the same ones, but most of the places that have instituted them have a process for rotating new images in after a set period to deal with this effect. They’ve also been shown to be much more effective than any other type of warning when you’re dealing with people of lower literacy levels.

Since I don’t believe Americans are actually that different from the rest of humanity, I’m going to go with the evidence on this one.

I should add that my grandfather who died of lung/brain cancer at 78, had continued to smoke, despite the health warnings.

My grandmother didn’t smoke and lasted until 88, my father, the non-smoker since the ‘50s is 88 and still counting, nothing life threatening.

My step-mother, the chain smoker, survived one bout with cancer but suffered from major sinus problems for the remainder of her life.

Object lessons, and the scientific connection, may also be the reason two of the three children in our family never took up smoking (for more than 3 minutes during college.)

My brother quit, cold turkey, when the airlines banned smoking on planes, at a time when he travelled extensively for business (despite a chain-smoking boyfriend.)

Chain-smoking boyfriend quit in solidarity.

So, yes, I’ve seen the combination of warnings about cancer, and social restrictions affect the rates of smoking in my own family.

Smoking in the state of California has been greatly reduced over the past 20 years, due to aggressive statewide public awareness and anti-smoking campaigns. As a result of these efforts, California now boasts the second-lowest rate of adult smokers in the nation. Smoking bans in many public areas have contributed greatly to the reduction in smokers. For instance, a smoke-free bar law went into effect in 1998. Over the next 4 years compliance with the law increased from 46% in 1998 to 76% in 2002, reflecting a significant drop in the number of adults smoking in these areas.

According to Dr. Mark Horton of the California Department of Public Health, the adult smoking rate has dropped from 22.7 percent in 1988 to 13.8 percent in 2007. California’s low rate of adult smokers is even more striking when compared to the 2006 national rate of smokers over the age of 18, which was 21%...

2006 statistics reflect a lower rate of 30-day smoking prevalence among people under the age of 18 in California (15.4%) compared to the rest of the U.S. (19.7%).”

http://www.smokingstatistics.org/Smoking_Statistics_in_California.asp

“In this case, you are demonstrably wrong unless the American public is radically different from the Canadian one.”

Well, that’s a silly statement, ‘cause anyone knows that Americans are totally unique and exceptional, so of course we’re radically different from Canadians… 

***

I don’t know what the solution is to getting people to stop smoking and get kids not to start.  I’m hoping that as it becomes more and more outre to be seen smoking, that perhaps it’ll disappear on its own.  (I suppose that could be considered naive).  Linking it with miserable, old, unattractive, decrepit people to override any lingering coolness factor sounds good, but I’m really not sure it would make much of a dent.

I know for myself, one trip to Vegas, where it seems like everyone smokes, is enough to make me want to punch smokers in the street — the stench permeating my clothes and giving me headaches.  I don’t have asthma, but i know people who do, and some of them literally can’t breathe when exposed to tobacco smoke.  I guess I’m glad I’m not quite that sensitive…

To end up, a quote John Lennon: “Although I’m so tired I’ll have another cigarette. And curse Sir Walter Raleigh, He was such a stupid git.”

Smoking bans are the bestest things ever.  Restaurants used to insist smokers were their best customers and a ban would kill them.  After the ban, revenues went up because nonsmokers were happy to stay in a place that didn’t make them stink and there are more nonsmokers.

Nothing but legislation could have made that change.  Restaurant owners ignored the results from other states in order to follow their guts.  Their guts were wrong.

Banning smoking from most places works the best.  People huddling 15 feet from a doorway in the cold look like asses, not cool kids.  It gives the lie to claims that smoking is something people choose to do and show it as the addiction it is.  And as more people get used to being in smoke free environments, the times where you are forced to put up with someone else’s smoke are even more noticeable and objectionable.

If our Canadian neighbors say gross pix help as well, I’m all for it.  I’ll buy the science.  Raise the taxes some more, too. 

Really good video as usual, I wish more public speakers were like this.  Especially the ones in the mainstream.  Life would be much better.

That said, I’m not entirely unconvinced that the packaging couldn’t prevent new smokers from starting up.  The rational reasons people have for picking up smoking is a) it’s relaxing and b) it makes you look cool.  The packaging might damage both desires.

This.

I think the war on cancer sticks is going to be fought primarily by deterring people from starting rather than getting people to quit. As a former smoker (11 months tobacco/nicotine free!), I can say that it was the hardest addiction I’ve ever had to fight, and I didn’t really even start to feel like I could stay smoke-free until I had gone a few weeks without a cigarette. I firmly believe that nicotine is the single most addictive drug out there, and absolutely the toughest drug to quit. There are lots of tips and tools available to help someone quit smoking, but the bottom line is that nobody is going to quit until they are truly fully committed to it, and until they accept that it is not going to be easy in the beginning. The truth is that quitting smoking really sucks in the beginning. It’s no fun, it’s intimidating, it feels like the cravings aren’t going to go away. But it does get better - the hardest part is getting through the first few hours, then the first few days, then the first few weeks, and before you know it, the almost unbearable feeling of craving has dissipated significantly.

The best chance that someone has of being a non-smoker is to not start smoking in the first place. I’m hoping that younger generations are a lot more tuned in to how incredibly terrible this habit is then kids were when I was a teenager. Here’s an interesting statistic I heard the other day, don’t know if it is true or not: a lifetime of smoking costs more in actual dollars and cents than an Ivy League education.

On the other hand, the states with the highest percentage of smokers are Kentucky with 28.2, West Virginia with 26.9, Oklahoma with 25.8, Missouri with 24.5, and Tennessee with 24.3.

Missouri’s high smoking rate is at least partly driven by having the cheapest cigarettes in the country. We have the lowest state excise taxes on cigarettes of all 50 states - $0.17/pack. The second lowest is Virginia at $0.30/pack. Just across the river in Illinois, the tax is $0.98/pack. And in New York, it’s more than 25 times what it is in Missouri - $4.35/pack in the Empire State.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_taxes_in_the_United_States#State_cigarette_tax_rates

St. Louis City and County just imposed a smoking ban at the beginning of the year, but there are still exemptions for casinos and bars who make less than 25% of their money from food sales. The bar exemption will be phased out in 5 years, but the casinos were able to bribe their way into having a permanent exemption to the smoking ban. This has pretty much destroyed business for the two casinos across the river, which are both subject to the Illinois state-wide smoking ban.

I worked in a bar before the smoking bans, and my hair and clothing would stink of cigarette smoke the next day.

That was a period in college I wasn’t even tempted to smoke once, oddly enough.

A trip to Greece a couple years ago, and wandered into a men’s smoking cafe. Ugh. Yellowed walls, which stank, looked at the yellowed menu for a moment, and I was out of there like a shot.

They’ve banned smoking in some outdoor public areas of my California city, areas I use, and I’m thankful.

(It’s even banned at the beach. Cigarette butts are an environmental diaster.)

As the California example may make apparent, a combined effort of linking smoking to cancer, and social restrictions combine to lower smoking rates.

Bring on the lung cancer pictures!

The problem is that people don’t start smoking when they’re in their 20’s and some inkling of mortality has set in on them. They start smoking when they’re 12 and they think they’re invincible, and that they’re a master of their own destiny and would never become addicted to anything. So putting a picture of some old dude with lung cancer when a kid can’t even picture themselves past the age of 19 isn’t going to make a lick of difference to the demographic that matters—because they can’t see themselves in that position.

There’s a third group of people that these warnings will help and that everyone seems to forget about: People who have quit smoking. I’d like that reminder every time I see a pack of cigarettes please, because maybe it will help me keep the junkie inside me locked up safely. Every time I see someone pull out a pack of smokes I have to wrestle that fucker back into his cage. “Can I bum one of those?” is always on the tip of my fucking tongue.

People seem to think that it’s easy not to smoke after you’ve been quit for a while, but it’s just like any other kind of addiction, always there, forever. Once a junkie, always a junkie. There’s always that little voice that says, “One won’t hurt. You can have one on a special occasion. One every now and then. One for your birthday. One to celebrate the new job. One for this awful stress. One because your girlfriend left you.”

I say we hire people to follow smokers around and tell them they fucking stink and they’re gonna die wheezing. And when you quit they tell you how nice you smell and how healthy you look. We can always use more reminders.

Again, the combined effort of education on effects and social restrictions in California has also resulted in a lower rate of teen smokers: 15% vs. 19% nationally.

I don’t understand this insistence on the anecdotal alone—“I don’t think this will work!”—versus the facts and figures.

I thought it was heartening that the regulators chose the pictures based on public impact, and one of the pictures that respondents judged to be most motivating wasn’t some terrifying picture of organ damage, but rather, a picture of a thirty-something, average-looking beardy dude wearing a t-shirt that says “I Quit” and smiling.

I don’t smoke. But if I were a smoker who was already second-guessing whether I should buy my next pack, I bet I’d be more motivated to quitby a positive image of someone I could relate to, doing something that I sort of aspired to do anyway, as opposed to a negative image of what my lungs might look like in 20 years.

In New York City prominent posters of cigarette-induced physiological carnage are displayed wherever cigarettes are sold. I hate seeing that rotten tooth whenever I buy milk at the convenience store. It’s 100% accurate and science-based. Cigarettes do promote tooth decay, especially if they accelerate other tobacco-linked health problems like heart disease, hypertension, or diabetes. Like I said, I don’t even smoke. I floss twice a day, like it was my religion. That poster still makes me queasy every time I see it. So, on the plus side, if the shock value hits you, it doesn’t necessarily wear off, even after several months. On the minus side, I’m probably not the person they were trying to reach.

I don’t think her arguments can be applied to smoking. For heroine addicts, for example, she says they don’t use clean needles because getting clean needles means risk of arrest. Then she notes that the perception of risk around HIV among gay party boys has gone down (it’s harder to catch, easier to live with). Hookers make more money than factory workers - easy choice. In all of these cases the risky behavior makes sense, but none of them apply to smoking.

For nicotine addicts - I’m not talking about new smokers here - there absolutely is no reason to smoke except to give your body the nicotine it needs. End of story. I would not describe the decision to continue smoking once you’re addicted as “rational.” It’s more a rationalization. I smoked for 15 years and for the last 5 or so I desperately wanted to quit. There was no reason not to - there was no threat of arrest and I wasn’t getting paid to smoke. There were many reasons to quit though: all my stuff smelled, I felt like shit, I constantly worried about working smoke breaks into my day (traveling was awful), and it was embarrassing and expensive.  The rational choice would have been to quit. I just couldn’t. Every time I tried I would rationalize continuing. I honestly had these almost out of body experiences where it was like my brain was convincing me that quitting wasn’t really necessary - a few a day is no big deal, you can just be a social smoker, cancer doesn’t run in your family, etc. I was miserable but just could not stop. After several attempts at quitting I finally recognized the cycle I was going through every time I tried to quit. The trick for me was to ignore my brain and all its arguments and just power through a month or so. I actually printed cancer pictures to carry around with me to help me quit, so yeah - I’m totally in favor of these pictures. I wish they were around when I smoked.

Yeah I agree with antiope - they can help.  I think they might help more people than you might guess.  Maybe not right away, it takes time. 

Quitting smoking was the most god-awful thing I ever had to do.  It took me several years on and off the patch and a significant weight gain which I was unable to lose until two years after I had my last cigarette.  There were times when I would literally put my head down between my knees to try and get a grip, and then start crying.  Just out of pure frustration and desire for that cigarette.  But I always believed I was going to get cancer.  It’s true that you do tend to think, oh I’ll quit next year, that’ll be soon enough so that I don’t get cancer.  Eventually you get old enough where that mindfuck doesn’t work anymore.  I quit at 36 but it took me over two years, so i had my last one at 38.  I could still get lung cancer from smoking because I started as a teen, my risk will never be that of a person who never smoked.  Never.  But I know it’s better now.  And whenever I read about someone dying of lung cancer ,especially if they were relatively young, like in their 40’s, I heard that believe me.  And scary pictures helped.  Pictures of people with those voiceboxes freaked me out.  I never once thought that couldn’t happen to me.

This won’t make everyone quit, or even most, but some will.  It will have a net positive effect.  IMO.

In this case, you are demonstrably wrong unless the American public is radically different from the Canadian one.

Data trumps the essayist.  No matter how well composed, the argument fails if indeed smoking drops.

@Lindsay: I think you’re probably right. We can still have the negative organ damage photos, but the positive image ones will be more likely to make current smokers quit. We *know* it causes organ damage. The scare stuff may help prevent people from starting, but it doesn’t really make you want to quit. The positive images could be more of a “strive for this” deal. Until you mentioned them and I googled it, I’d never seen a positive images about quitting smoking.

@antiope: I’m currently 4 days without a cigarette, and I’m seriously hoping the rage filled asshole phase goes away. (I’m sure pretty much everyone I come in contact with hopes so too.) The rationalization that keeps flitting through my mind currently amounts to “Wow. I’m a complete dick without cigarettes. I should have one for the good of mankind!”.

They start smoking when they’re 12 and they think they’re invincible, and that they’re a master of their own destiny and would never become addicted to anything. So putting a picture of some old dude with lung cancer when a kid can’t even picture themselves past the age of 19 isn’t going to make a lick of difference to the demographic that matters—because they can’t see themselves in that position.

Yeah, but I’m pretty sure plastering something with pictures of homely, tacky old people is an excellent way to make it NOT appealing to 12-year-olds who want to be cool.

kristin @20: Why would that make it not appealing? If anything that makes it cooler. Look how badass I am, smoking these cancer sticks like I just don’t care.

You almost cannot be too much of a conspiracy theorist when it comes to thinking about the effort Big Tobacco has put into getting people to smoke its product when they’re too young to judge the risks, and then getting them physically addicted so they don’t quit.

Warnings help them in this regard. They can hide behind them: oh look, it’s not our fault that this guy started smoking in eighth grade and couldn’t quit until he died of lung cancer, we TOLD him it was dangerous!

Maybe some of that cigarette tax money should go to provide more treatment resources instead of scare tactics. For example, college campuses could provide free nicotine gum/patches/etc as well as smoking cessation counseling. It’s an addiction. Most people get whacked out withdrawal symptoms even if they want to quit. Helping people manage that could only help.

All the numbers I’ve seen suggests that the images on cigarette packs have been successful in reducing smoking in Canada, at least.

Yeah, the numbers really do seem to support them working here in Canada. However, I think there have also been tax increases driving up prices and bans at the same time, so there’s almost certainly some synergy going on.

I’m personally of the opinion that anti-smoking efforts (or similar public health initiatives) probably work best if you approach the whole situation like you do a cat you’re trying to get to stop scratching a chair.  Frustrate the undesired behavior, replace with an alternative that works for everyone.

That strikes me as almost certainly true. I suspect that the images are playing into some of that, though, by acting as something on the disincentive side of the equation.

For smoking, it looks like the results are pretty good from simple interventions like high taxes and heavy-ass bans in public spaces.  Both can be overdone, but present levels (in aggressive communities—not Missouri, DTGslu2K!) are succeeding.  I seldom think “things are as good as they’ll get; leave well enough alone” but sometimes we’re there.

Well, as an ex-smoker myself , what drove me to quit was the sheer price. I actually enjoyed smoking (I found it rather relaxing, and I tend to stay to myself), but there was a point where it was just not worth it any more. I don’t think disgusting pictures would have driven me to quit (I would have looked at that in the same fashion that “pro-lifers” use pictures, and in the same spirit), although it probably would have helped early on.

@Svlad Jelly #13

I say we hire people to follow smokers around and tell them they fucking stink and they’re gonna die wheezing. And when you quit they tell you how nice you smell and how healthy you look. We can always use more reminders.

After this, I’m sure we could hire people to follow fat people around and tell them they fucking stick and they’re ugly and they’re gonna die of heart failure. And when they lose weight they can tell them how nice and healthy they look.

Just saying. I hope you’re not fat.

Smoking bans are the bestest things ever.  Restaurants used to insist smokers were their best customers and a ban would kill them.  After the ban, revenues went up because nonsmokers were happy to stay in a place that didn’t make them stink and there are more nonsmokers.

It largely depends on how the ban is imposed - when it is done statewide or at a minimum throughout an entire metropolitan area, it is quite effective. When it is done sporadically among various individual municipalities within a metropolitan area, a lot of businesses oftentimes suffer for it. I would imagine that it also largely depends on how prevalent smoking is in the particular area involved. Since Illinois instituted their statewide ban a few years ago, it has had a devastating impact on the two casinos in the St. Louis Metro East area across the river, and drove all of the business to the smoker-friendly casinos on the St. Louis side. Granted, casinos in general probably have a higher percentage of smokers as their clientele than the public at large. In any case, several individual municipalities began imposing smoking bans in the St. Louis metro a few years ago, but they all saw their business suffer until St. Louis City and County jointly passed a smoking ban over all of the municipalities in the county plus St. Louis City (St. Louis City is not a part of any county - it’s one of only two major cities in the country not incorporated into a surrounding county, the other being Baltimore, MD).

The most effective way to impose smoking bans is to do so over a wide geographical area so everybody has a level playing field.

Also, while I knew that cigarettes were more expensive almost everywhere else in the country, I had no idea until now that a pack of Marlboro cigarettes costs about $11 in New York City. Compare that to about $4.50 in St. Louis. And it’s all because of the taxes levied - Missouri levies only $0.17/pack, whereas New York State + NYC levies $6.50/pack. I probably would have quit even sooner if I had to pay that freaking much for the evil cancer sticks. Actually, the federal SCHIP tax of $1/pack in 2009 really pushed me to quit, even though I didn’t actually succeed until a year later.

A policy being tried somewhere - Australia I think? - is forcing cigarettes to be sold in plain brown packages.  No logos.  No pictures.  No fancy branding, except a plain name.  The cigarette companies are fighting it tooth and nail - claiming it will not work - when of course the reason they are fighting tooth and nail is that they think it will work.  It will be interesting to see the outcome.

I’m an ex-smoker (and in case it encourages anyone out there who wants to quit and is worried about how horrible it will be - it wasn’t too bad for me - yeah sure some cravings, but nothing like the horror stories that some people have unfortunately experienced) and I have to admit that some of what you smoked was about image.  Smoking Marlboro Lights or Camel was a social marker, and was different if you smoked Regal or Lambert & Butler - class, race and gender were all implicated.  Plain brown packaging takes that away.

I’m a middle-aged smoker who still enjoys the habit who is deeply ambivalent about aging, being the primary caregiver to a senile mother who is only 86, whose mother had and sister has Alzheimers. My father and his sister died at around my age, but his brother is still around and his parents neared 90 without much evidence of dementia, so it’s possible that my concerns are misplaced.

Still, whenever I have to deal with my mother’s fear and confusion, which at some times of the day is every thirty seconds (her time horizon is really short) I’m decidedly unenthusiastic about matching her longevity.

@antiope: I’m currently 4 days without a cigarette, and I’m seriously hoping the rage filled asshole phase goes away.

Congrats on four days! That really is a big deal if you’re a full-blown nicotine addict like I am/was. The rage-filled asshole phase will probably pass in a few more days, just hang on. It does get better, I promise! Keep going, you’ll really start to notice that you’re already feeling better physically pretty soon.

I think the best anti-smoking campaigns are the ones that focus on second-hand smoke.  I think smokers for the most part get it, they are doing something that will kill them, but they will be less likely to light up if they know that their cigarette might kill their friend or their family member.  The damage of second-hand smoke is being covered up by the smoking apologists today as much as the damage of first-hand smoke was decades ago.

Also another factor not mentioned as much in anti-smoking campaigns is the fact that millions of additional unnecessary fires are being set every day, at least a few of those fires will get loose and cause damage either to the environment or to buildings.  How many apartments have been burned down because a neighbor fell asleep with a cigarette still lit?  Plus think of all those used cigarettes being littered all over the place, it’s the non-smokers who usually have to clean up that shit.  Smoking affects us all.

i’m not planning on quitting - but then again, i don’t WANT to reach “old age”. i’m 34 and in chronic pain and in a wheelchair - life after 50 isn’t appealing. [but i try to be a good smoker - i smoke in my own home, but don’t smoke in other people’s unless they both smoke inside themselves and say i can; i smoke AWAY from doors when i’m out, i ALWAYS throw butts away, etc etc]

that said, what i really wish they’d do is decouple NICOTINE from the carcinogins, and the allow people to use nicotine. pills, maybe? i know the electric cigarettes are supposed to have zero carcinogens, and when i was in the hospital, i was given an “inhaler” of nicotine [the problem with THAT is one hit = entire cigarette. which… isn’t always a good thing]

i just think it would make more sense, for those currently using tobacco, to find an alternate method for them that is less dangerous [or not dangerous]. and it shouldn’t be difficult, especially when the tobacco companies should back such an endevour so that they don’t go out of business. na da? and yet, like real BC for men, this is an avenue that is mostly unexplored…

JThompson - and all the others trying to quit - hang in there. If you’re struggling, ignore that inner junkie (as someone else described it) and keep your end goal in sight. What I remember reading is that it takes a few days to get over the physical addiction (not sure whether it’s true, but it helped me to believe it) and after that it’s mostly the habit/psychological addiction. The first few months were insanely hard for me, and then it was like a switch went off. Once I could smell and taste things again - and spent a month in Austria where people smoke EVERYWHERE - I never wanted to be near one of those fucking things ever again. They are truly disgusting. I’ve been without a cigarette 6 years this August.

@denelian: Having 2 uncles die of cancer, no judgement on my part (if you find smoking worth the cost for the pleasures it gives you, that’s fine) but I can think of a lot of other reckless pleasures that might cut your life short before 50 in ways that are more desirable than the slow wasting away disease of cancer.

For example, college campuses could provide free nicotine gum/patches/etc as well as smoking cessation counseling.

Mine did! I thought it was great because I had a friend who was trying to quit and having a very difficult time of it even though he had not been smoking that long.

So when will it be time to ban alcohol in this country, seeing as how drunk driving and liver disease are major killers? 

Around the time we ban french fries and forwarded email jokes.

Putting the smoking lounge in the principal’s office is the wrong move. It’ll make every middle-school mini-badass think they’re even more like Bender.

anoNY2, drunk driving is illegal.

It’ll make every middle-school mini-badass think they’re even more like Bender.

Bite my shiny metal ass!

@anoNY2

So when will it be time to ban alcohol in this country, seeing as how drunk driving and liver disease are major killers?

You do realize that alcohol is already “banned” in much the same way that smoking is? Which is to say, the “smoking bans” you see do not make tobacco illegal, they regulate where you can consume it.  And we do have that with alcohol, what with open container laws and liquor licenses.

Great video speech by Pisani.  I put a link on my FB page. 

I’ve never been a smoker but my mother has been since she was 20 and is now 86.  She was probably a functional alcoholic, too, from about age 30 onward.  She’s still alive but most of her memory is shot.  Another example of how anecdotal evidence is useless. 

I was troubled by government bans on indoor smoking until I considered the involuntary exposure of workers in bars and the evidence of second hand smoke hazards.  I’m still troubled by the ban in public parks, particularly on aesthetic grounds, which Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee mocked effectively earlier this week. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-20-2011/new-york-city-outdoor-smoking-ban .  But if my local park had billows of smoke as a constant problem instead of an occasional whiff walking through, I would want a ban in the park, too. 

I quit 7/2/2011, right after NY raised the tax yet again, making cigarettes about $12 a pack and a pack-a-day habit $4380 per year. I had smoked for 16 years and it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I probably wouldn’t have gotten hooked in my teens if cigarettes were $12 then. Where was I going to get $4380 a year in disposable income?
As far as putting scary pictures on packaging, smokers don’t look at them any more than they keep their eyes glued to the TV when that guy with the hole in his throat comes on and tells them how much he used to love swimming. Horrifying images might deter a few others from starting, but what one of the qualities that makes this addiction so dangerous is that it takes a really long time to kill you and EVERYBODY thinks THEY can stop before their bodies give out. I say scrap the horror pics and make the sh*t sticks too expensive for kids.

You were talking about the “cool factor”... On that tip, I think the biggest effect that the new packaging will have is to dramatically increase the sale of cigarette cases.  So, invest now!!!

Judi @2: at least 4 of those 5 heaviest smoking states are also traditional tabacco producers.  That has to have an effect on rates, too.

I don’t doubt that tobacco-producing states are less likely to restrict it’s use, and tax the product.

Again, it seems that the combination of factors cut down the rate of use: including raising costs, educating on effects and restricting where smoking can occur.

Luckily, I live in California (and Santa Monica) where that combo has worked to produce some of the lowest rates of smoking in the nation.

Get to (politely) warn tourists every week or so that they’ll get ticketed on our outdoor mall, unless they take their lit ciggies around the corner.

Can only hope they take the lesson home.

Quitting smoking is hard for most people. I sympathize, I really do. But it was really easy for me to do. For whatever reason I just never got the insane craving. But for all you people who keep claiming it is the hardest addiction to break, give your head a shake. However hard it is/was for you, it is nothing like trying to get off of alcohol or heroin. Sure, you got the little voice that hounds you and hounds you and monster cravings but you clearly have no fucking clue what happens to an alcoholic’s body - or worse, a junkie’s body - when they try to quit. They don’t just have psychological cravings and need to find another way to deal with stress and something else to do with their hands—their bodies literally go into meltdown. They have all the psychological addiction issues smokers have, but they also have terrible physical addiction symptoms to deal with. Some junkies actually die from going cold turkey. No smoker ever had it so bad, no matter what stories they tell themselves to forgive themselves for not being able to quit. This myth that “nicotine is the worst habit to try to break” needs to die yesterday.

[Full disclosure: Worked in drug and alcohol rehab center.]

i think nicotine addiction trumps the grossout from seeing those pictures, but it can’t hurt and maybe it will keep some younger kids from ever starting.  as a smoker, i was annoyed by the smoking ban as it relates to bars, but i adjusted pretty quickly and now think it’s fucking fantastic to be able to go out and not have to wash every article of clothing before i can wear it again.  i’ve never smoked in my own dwelling (or anyone else’s, without them expressly saying it’s ok—and i’d never ASK) and generally find smoking indoors to be pretty disgusting.

i’m trying to quit now and i’m finding that one of the biggest issues is readjusting the social and lifestyle aspects.  it’s hard to remind myself to step away from the computer screen for a bit every so often and smoking provided a convenient excuse. now i try to go outside and walk around the building, because i’m not ready to hang out with the smokers’ crowd yet, since i know i’ll have one if i do.  i have never been a heavy smoker, so maybe that’s part of it, but i do think that the nicotine addiction itself would be easier to vanquish if there weren’t all these other factors that make smoking appealing in some way, at least to someone who’s been doing it for awhile.

If you’re worried about getting dementia, that could be a compelling reason to quit smoking. Heavy smoking in midlife doubles the risk of both Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, the two most common causes of cognitive decline in the elderly: http://researchnews.kaiser.org/?p=284

@wondering: The studies I’ve seen say that nicotine is basically as physically addictive as heroin, actually. Your ease at quitting might be a quirk of personal body chemistry.

The one advantage of nicotine over heroin is that no matter how addictive it is, the effects are such that the vast majority of nicotine addicts are highly functionning. So in THAT sense, yeah it’s worse to be on heroin.

The rational reasons people have for picking up smoking is a) it’s relaxing and b) it makes you look cool.

As a lifelong dork on the verge of turning 40, I might not have the right sense of these things, but why is it that smoking “makes you look cool”?  I’ve never been able to understand why anyone ever starts smoking.  Almost every other drug seems much more appealing in terms of potent mood-altering effects, and if you want to “look cool” you can grow a mustache or get a piercing or play around with makeup or something.  Why smoke cigarettes in particular?  At a fundamental level I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

I did not have trouble quitting, either, but I won’t say that most people don’t.

My spouse is a working musician.  After quitting, could only practice for maybe five minutes at a time instead of for the accustomed hours with a cigarette on the lip.  It took a couple of years to get back to normal concentration levels.

flipyrwhig, the reason that smoking “looks cool” is because of a concerted advertising strategy on the part of big tobacco that began over 100 years ago.  i studied this for a class i took in the history of american advertising and it’s truly amazing.

@oldfeminist: that sounds like self-medication with mild stimulants for mild ADD.  I do the same with caffeine.

Chareth, smoking looks cool because, whoa, you can hold something burning and suck smoke in and blow smoke it out.  It’s like a magic trick you can perform 20, even 40 times a day.  Your breath is visible like a dragon’s!  You have tamed fire!  You can make exaggerated breathing noises and have a reason to do so!

Yes, there’s a lot of sales involved, too, but just the process has some fun to it.

Also you are doing something your parents don’t want you to do.  I think this motive is less powerful now than in the fifties and sixties, for reasons Amanda has described when discussing how music your parents like may not actually suck—the boomers may be annoying to a lot of people, but they finally got that having fun was a goal worth pursuing for its own sake.

Quitting smoking is hard for most people. I sympathize, I really do. But it was really easy for me to do. For whatever reason I just never got the insane craving. But for all you people who keep claiming it is the hardest addiction to break, give your head a shake. However hard it is/was for you, it is nothing like trying to get off of alcohol or heroin. Sure, you got the little voice that hounds you and hounds you and monster cravings but you clearly have no fucking clue what happens to an alcoholic’s body - or worse, a junkie’s body - when they try to quit.

Actually I do have an idea what that’s like, because I did have to quit alcohol, and had to go through a Librium diet in detox in order to do it safely. The physical cravings caused by alcoholism were not as intense for me as the nicotine cravings caused by my cigarette addiction. The facility where I went for treatment had one of the top addiction medicine physicians in the country on staff, and he said that without a doubt, the most addictive recreational drug out there (including both illegal and legal drugs) was nicotine, hands down.

They don’t just have psychological cravings and need to find another way to deal with stress and something else to do with their hands—their bodies literally go into meltdown. They have all the psychological addiction issues smokers have, but they also have terrible physical addiction symptoms to deal with.

Smoking cessation causes more than just psychological cravings, it causes very real physical cravings as well.

I started smoking because when you’re at work and something happens that ticks you off, if you’re a smoker you can say, “I really need a cigarette after dealing with that asshole,” and that is a good reason to leave work and do something else for a few minutes.  I have found through experimentation that it claiming a sudden and urgent need for some other consumable object, such as a turkey sandwich, mars bar, or cup of tea, after dealing with that asshole, does not work.  “It was funny the first time,” people say, “but no.”  Meanwhile Smokey McSmokersons can use that excuse to get an extra break two or three times a week.  So that’s why I smoke.

Well, there’s lots of things your parents don’t want you to do, some private and some public.  It’s the history of smoking-as-particularly-cool that confuses me.  It obviously _works_, from a marketing standpoint, but it’s very strange.  Maybe the key is that it’s right in the sweet spot:  it’s visible enough that you get credit for being bad, and available enough that you don’t have to work too hard to get your hands on some, yet acceptable enough that you’re not a total pariah for doing it.  But the thing that has always confused me is that I have almost never heard anyone say “I started smoking for the high.”  A drug that slowly kills you but doesn’t particularly get you high in the process?  That’s fucked up.  Just as a pure mood-altering or self-medicating strategy, it’s bizarre.

Just as a pure mood-altering or self-medicating strategy, it’s bizarre.

Depending on how you smoke, you can get different affects:

Research suggests that, when smokers wish to achieve a stimulating effect, they take short quick puffs, which produce a low level of blood nicotine.[43] This stimulates nerve transmission. When they wish to relax, they take deep puffs, which produce a high level of blood nicotine, which depresses the passage of nerve impulses, producing a mild sedative effect. At low doses, nicotine potently enhances the actions of norepinephrine and dopamine in the brain, causing a drug effect typical of those of psychostimulants. At higher doses, nicotine enhances the effect of serotonin and opiate activity, producing a calming, pain-killing effect. Nicotine is unique in comparison to most drugs, as its profile changes from stimulant to sedative/pain killer in increasing dosages and use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine

But the thing that has always confused me is that I have almost never heard anyone say “I started smoking for the high.”

We had a family friend who started working for a drug store back in the late 30s, he started because his boss noticed him getting tired during the day so he suggested that the friend take a cigarette break when he felt tired, and he started doing so, which of course led to his getting hooked on them.

Smokey McSmokersons can use that excuse to get an extra break two or three times a week.  So that’s why I smoke.
Comment #56: A.  on 06/23 at 09:49 PM

When I first worked at company X, they allowed smoking at your desk.  About a year later, they required you smoke only in designated areas, and sent out a memo to that effect. 

I sent out a subsequent fake memo saying that non-smokers were eligible to designate a smoke buddy, so when the smoker smoke buddy took her or his break, the non-smoker could take a break as well.

Interesting, Dark Avenger, thanks!  I’ve been under-informed.

This is a good book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Cigarette-confidential-unfiltered-truth-about/dp/042515114X

Oh, also, thx to chareth for the story about advertising strategy.

The studies I’ve seen say that nicotine is basically as physically addictive as heroin, actually. Your ease at quitting might be a quirk of personal body chemistry.

There was a researcher who got herself addicted to both heroin and smoking, she reported that kicking the latter was worse than getting off the heroin.

BlackBloc, you really should research the history of opiate addiction, it may surprise you:

IN 1883, the American physician J. B. Mattison made the startling announcement that the majority of American morphine habitues were doctors and suggested that between thirty and forty percent of medical professionals were addicted (23). By 1909, an English addiction specialist had broadened the context and seemingly raised the ante, claiming “that the proportion of medical addicts to the total of cases is in some statistics as high as ninety per cent., and that one-fifth of the mortality in the profession is said to be caused by morphinism” (Jennings, The Morphia Habit v). Looking back in 1924, the German psychopharmacologist Louis Lewin referred to a “statistical table of [morphine] addicts, including all countries of the world,” which “gave 40.4 per cent doctors, 10.0 per cent doctors’ wives” (54). Of course, all these data are somewhat questionable since reliable measures would have been all but impossible to obtain and the proportions surely varied over the periods and areas in question. But we can reasonably deduce at least this much: medical professionals were consistently the most prominent demographic group among morphine addicts in the developed western world after the middle of the nineteenth century.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=323441

The only difference between heroin and morphine is one acetyl group, and morphine doesn’t make people layabouts, at least not those in the medical profession.

Dr William Stewart Halsted (1852-1922), known as the father of American surgery, used morphine daily. “Although he had never been able to reduce the amount to less than three grains daily,” his colleague Dr William Osler wrote, “on this he could do his work comfortably and maintain his excellent physical vigor (for he was a very muscular fellow). I do not think that anyone suspected him.”

http://www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com/issue/2005/07_30/2_feature02_13.html

So if you have an operation these days, you should probably thanks Halsted the junky.

chareth is 100% correct.

i’m not planning on quitting - but then again, i don’t WANT to reach “old age”. i’m 34 and in chronic pain and in a wheelchair - life after 50 isn’t appealing.

Smoking is not a way to blessedly and peacefully cut your life short. Being a smoker doesn’t mean you toodle along happily and then keel over dead of lung cancer one day; it has chronic, ugly, horrible effects on your health. Chronic pain and in a wheelchair is bad. Try adding “chronic pain and in a wheelchair and COPD and gasping for air like a fish and having to use oxygen 24/7.”

The most effective anti-smoking campaigns I’ve seen have been those that directly counter the ‘smoking is cool and adult’ marketing: there was a comic book aimed at teens (which won a graphic design award) showing that tobacco is sold by big faceless corporations that deliberately manipulate teens and want them to confirm to rip them off.