Smokers --Question about Images on Cigarette Packages

[JessicaR]

Most of you are highly underestimating the addictive nature of nicotine. It's not that people don't want to quit but that it's very very difficult to do so....
that said, no, I don't think the pics will stop people who are already addicted.

HOWEVER, I do think it might give pause to younger beginner smokers, at least I'm hoping that's the case.
C.Anns idea is really a good one that people could and should impliment themselves as they try to withdraw from their cancer sticks.

I agree.

 

[Inigo]

I agree. Smokers smoke because they like smoking.Even when they want to quit it's really hard because smoking is very pleasurable for them.

No, they smoke because they're addicted to the nicotine. It's a very addictive substance.

 

[Inigo]

After trying things for years that never worked, I read an article where a gastroenterologist had suggested smoking 2-3 cigarettes to his IBS patients, so I tried it and it worked! .

It's odd to me that smoking helps IBS but hurts IBD since both deal with the digestive system. I have IBS friends who get the benefit, and IBD friends who pay the consequences for smoking.

As for me, when we were kids, my BFF (from birth) told me if I ever smoked she would kick my butt. And she would have.

 

[Planogirl]

I wonder if these pictures will faze younger smokers at all. For one thing, many of them think that they're indestructible and that all of these bad things won't happen to them. I remember feeling a little like that. Plus a few kids seem to think that the oddest things are "cool". Who knows what they'll think about pictures like this.

Where will the pictures be exactly? If on the side of a pack they'll have to be awfully tiny.

 

[KiKi Mouse]

Then I think back to the 60's - when women smoked while they were pregnant.. (Heck - right in the hospital..) No low-birth weight babies; no babies with health issues; and the mother's are still alive as well.. Why?

I was born in '66. My mother smoked throughout pregnancy and in the hospital. I grew up exposed to second hand smoke.

I have always had respiratory issues. When I get sick the infection goes to my lungs quickly. I have had allergy problems my entire life. I have MS (which I don't think is related, however it is an autoimmune disease).

My mother is in her early 60's now and still smokes. Coughs and smokes some more. She also has breast cancer and the start of COPD. And still smokes.

 

[Dan Murphy]

....Where will the pictures be exactly? If on the side of a pack they'll have to be awfully tiny.

http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/Labeling/CigaretteProductWarningLabels/ucm2024177.htm

They are somewhat similar to the EU's graphics......

http://www.smoke-free.ca/warnings/Europe - warnings.htm

I would like to see them be more graphic.

 

[JarethDrakul]

In the UK we already have packets with images and such no them.....they don't do anything. I remember one had an image of lungs of a smoker which was quite disgusting....most people I knew covered it up with abit of cardboard or simple ignored it.

I wonder if these pictures will faze younger smokers at all. For one thing, many of them think that they're indestructible and that all of these bad things won't happen to them. I remember feeling a little like that. Plus a few kids seem to think that the oddest things are "cool". Who knows what they'll think about pictures like this.

I can't speak for all younger people but when people smoked in school very few people had packets and usually bought a couple off the older people in the school so I guess some won't see the images.....and to be honest alot of oyunger people these days aren't as disgusted by such imagery what with the violence that you in the media these days.

 

[merryweather20]

Anti-smoking images on cigarette packages are about to get more graphic in the U.S. & Canada. They will include photographs of a 42-year old woman in the last stages of lung cancer. The cancer was attributed to cigarette smoking.

I was wondering what kind of impact these images will have on smokers. Will they cause you to make any changes?

We've had graphic pictures for years upon years here in Canada. Pictures of diseased lungs, depictions of impotence. What is going to be more graphic than diseased inards

 

[PatsMom]

I don't think it will make any difference at all. I know it wouldn't have bothered me back when I smoked. Smokers mostly smoke because they are addicted and anyone who has not gone through the quitting process is really not in a position to judge smokers IMHO. You may not want them near you but I don't think it is fair to say they smoke because they enjoy it or because they want to. I know I smoked because I was addicted.

I quit and four years later was diagnosed with high grade bladder cancer. Oddly enough the odds are just as good that it was caused by my oral diabetes medication as that it was caused by smoking.

If I were ever told that I was stage 4 and terminal, I would start smoking again. Four years later I still get cravings and miss it. But I want to live so I tough them out.

 

[Carly_Roach]

Anti-smoking images on cigarette packages are about to get more graphic in the U.S. & Canada. They will include photographs of a 42-year old woman in the last stages of lung cancer. The cancer was attributed to cigarette smoking.

I was wondering what kind of impact these images will have on smokers. Will they cause you to make any changes?

Nope. I roll my own so I won't even have to look at these images. Not that I think they'll do any good whatsoever. If kids want to smoke, they'll smoke. They see far worse things watching the Nightmare on Elm Street series than they ever would on a pack of cigarettes anyway.

 

[JessicaR]

If they want to deter, pricing them up would be the way to do it. Make them so prohibitive that most kids wont be able to afford them.

I read about these cloth covers that were made in protest to the pictures. So they put their pack in this sleeve and don't have to look at the pictures.

 

[rie'smom]

No, they smoke because they're addicted to the nicotine. It's a very addictive substance.

Some are addicted. Others smoke because they like it.

I was born in '66. My mother smoked throughout pregnancy and in the hospital. I grew up exposed to second hand smoke.

I have always had respiratory issues. When I get sick the infection goes to my lungs quickly. I have had allergy problems my entire life. I have MS (which I don't think is related, however it is an autoimmune disease).

My mother is in her early 60's now and still smokes. Coughs and smokes some more. She also has breast cancer and the start of COPD. And still smokes.

My mom smoked throughout her 5 pregnancies and none of us were affected. We all weighed between 7 and 8.5 lbs. and have been healthy our entire lives.

My husband and my dad, both of whom had moms and dads who never smoked, have had allergies and asthma.

Nothing is concrete. Some are affected by smoke and others are not just as some are affected by different grasses,foods, and medicines while others have absolutely no problem.

 

[christiane]

The consensus seems to be that this approach will not be very helpful. In my local paper this morning, they had interviews with smokers on the street and none of them said the images will make them quit smoking.

So, how did the government come up with this idea? I wonder what research they did that indicated this would be helpful. I'm sure this program will cost millions of dollars & this money could likely be better spent on other quitting programs.

Up until now, I have only seen the European & Canadian images. I looked at the U.S. images (thanks, Dan!) and found them to be silly & cartoonish. I can see teenagers outright laughing at them, the way teenagers do with morbid stuff.

There is probably no other product, that when used in its intended manner, can kill you.

If a smoker can look at a package and read that it's contents will kill you and still use & buy the product, then what on earth will help to make them stop?

 

[SaraJayne]

After trying things for years that never worked, I read an article where a gastroenterologist had suggested smoking 2-3 cigarettes to his IBS patients, so I tried it and it worked! I don't like the way cigs smell at all and I always wash my hands and my face, brush my teeth, and spray perfume after each time that I smoke. The relief it has brought makes it worth it.

Unless you shower and change clothes after every cigarette, you still smell.

 

[PaulaSB12]

Some are addicted. Others smoke because they like it.



My mom smoked throughout her 5 pregnancies and none of us were affected. We all weighed between 7 and 8.5 lbs. and have been healthy our entire lives.

My husband and my dad, both of whom had moms and dads who never smoked, have had allergies and asthma.

Nothing is concrete. Some are affected by smoke and others are not just as some are affected by different grasses,foods, and medicines while others have absolutely no problem.

Recently there have been articles saying that 600000 die of second hand smoke (if you look closely its 602300) this according to all articles is 1% of the population dying of second hand smoke. Who ever worked out this caculation was having a bad day or thinks people are stupid
number of people dying of second hand smoke
602300
people on the planet
6796248608
so here we go work out the percentage
602300/6793248608= 8.86*10^(-5) so the total percentage dying of second hand smoke is in fact 0.0088% not 1%

 

[kaytieeldr]

I think most smokers logically know what they are doing to their bodies

We do.

& the addiction is so fierce that this knowledge is not enough to stop them.

For most of us, it is.

I agree that the motivation needs to come from within.

Very true. I've put smoking on hold several times, but never truly been able to quit.

I can only hope that the graphic images will stop young people from smoking in the first place.

STRONGLY agree with this.

 

[minkydog]

Then I think back to the 60's - when women smoked while they were pregnant.. (Heck - right in the hospital..) No low-birth weight babies; no babies with health issues; and the mother's are still alive as well.. Why?

But here's the thing. Our understanding of "babies with health issues" has changed dramatically since the 1960s. I graduated nursing school in the 1970s and went straight to work in a labor & delivery dept in a big hospital. At that time doctors and nurses still smoked on the units, even right at the nurses station. Cigarettes were sold in the gift shop and in the vending machines. During their labor, women were allowed to smoke to calm their nerves. I can remember one particular New Years that i worked some of the nurses brought in wine and we toasted the new year with the doctors AND the patients. While on duty!

Back then, any baby born before 36 weeks was considered premature, just like today. However, back then they didn't have the rescue equipment and medications to save near-term or preterm infants so a lot of times decisions were made to withhold any treatment to make the end faster. I know. There were no TV style rescusitation scenes. If the baby was strong enough to breathe, it did. If not, it died and was labelled a miscarriage. Very rarely would a 34 week premie make it.

My MIL had her last baby at 37 weeks. She was a pack a day smoker and drank a cocktail every day. The baby was born normal weight, but had what was termed hyaline membrane disease, what we would call respiratory distress syndrome today. Today they would have popped him onto a vent for a bit and he would have almost certainly have pulled through in a few days. It is very unusual today for a baby that near term to die from premature lungs. Back then (1961) losing a baby to such a "miscarriage" was shockingly famliar. But even then, doctors didn't make the connection between smoking and the infants' lungs. It was thought that since the baby didn't inhale smoke that the lungs would be protected. Back then they believed that the placenta filtered out any "bad things" the mother might ingest or inhale. Of course, we know better now.

So, I'm sure that for every person who smoked and drank that popped out a series of perfect, normal weight babies there are a host of others whose babies were "miscarried" due to the lack of oxygen in the womb. They just didn't know what was causing it until later.

 

[Liberty Belle]

I don't think it's going to help any more than putting the picture of a foot with gangrene on a pack of Twinkies.

I understand the motivation for doing it--I wish there was some magical way to make people (myself included) make good decisions for themselves.

There's just no underestimating our ability to live for now and assume "it won't happen to me".

I'm not a twinkie addict or anything, but I promise you, if that was on a twinkie package, I'd never eat another one.

 

[Liberty Belle]

I've known three people close to me (mother, grandmother, mother-in-law) who were able to quit after smoking for 30 - 45 years. They had tried to quit before, but the only reason they were able to finally quit was because one had a burst appendix and was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, another had a heart attack, and the third had major bowel surgery. I think it takes personal terror, severe pain, or being confined where you cannot smoke for some people to quit.

 

[minkydog]

I've known three people close to me (mother, grandmother, mother-in-law) who were able to quit after smoking for 30 - 45 years. They had tried to quit before, but the only reason they were able to finally quit was because one had a burst appendix and was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, another had a heart attack, and the third had major bowel surgery. I think it takes personal terror, severe pain, or being confined where you cannot smoke for some people to quit.

Yeah, my grandmother was one of those people. She smoked unfiltered Camels, 3 packs a day. Her entire home was filled with smoke, except for the 18" from the floor to knee. She developed breast cancer and had to have surgery. As she was going into surgery she felt the insistent urge to talk to the surgeon. She told him,"Keep an eye on me, doc, I think I'm going to throw you a curve ball today." And sure enough, she did. Both lungs deflated and only with much effort were they able to reinflate one of them. She spent 3 weeks under heavy sedation in the ICU. When she woke up she wanted a cigarette but when she found out she had already gone almost a month without one, she decided to stay quit. I saw her smoke the very occasional cigarette a few more times after that, but she was definitely a success story, of sorts. (Unfortunately, she developed colon cancer later, which probably *was* a direct result of all that smoking.)