How Australians were persuaded to stop smoking

[LONDONER]

https://mic.com/articles/143799/australi....3ucHKLaRW

England, after a lot of dilly dallying, has also just introduced this legislation.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/tobacco-packag...57907.html

[InbetweenDreams]

Pretty graphic stuff. In high school was doing a project on cancer caused by chewing tabacco, the images were too graphic and the principal had us take it down. It's the cold hard truth though, the stuff will sooner or later kill you. Then you hear these stories like "my grandpa was chewing tobacco since he was 11 and he's 85 now," just to justify their habit.

Fortunately, I've long quit smoking, next month will make it 2 years since I quit. Hopefully more people quit from legislation like this.

[MickTheMousie]

I think it's gross but awesome, though mostly awesome, and i dont get why everybody dont do that, cuz personally i would feel too sick looking at the package to even consider smoking (eating) within the next hour or so

[matty7]

I didn't even like seeing the news item about this as the pictures were really bad - I think it will help prevent new young smokers but probably not addicted adults already hooked, but the future looks a little brighter... the funny thing is that any government could ban the sale of a product that is shown to cause a huge amount of deaths worldwide but they don't because they all enjoy the tax benefits it brings in from income off addicted guaranteed buyers

[InbetweenDreams]

I mean they could (and should) outright ban smoking but the tobacco industry is a pretty big deal, lots of money involved. Kind of sick to be in the business selling products that kill your customer.

[TwisttheLeaf]

I love it, and I wish they'd do it in the US.

[LJay]

I quit smoking more tahn 40 years ago but my roommate smokes. Every time I go to the doctor I have to explain this because thedoctor smells the smoke on me. The domestic battle over this tires me.

[Pix]

Then you hear these stories like "my grandpa was chewing tobacco since he was 11 and he's 85 now," just to justify their habit.

On the other side of this, I've seen some anti-smoking ads about people who died too early from smoking, and they included people in their 80s!

The oldest person on record at the time a photo was taken showed the lady smoking a Marlboro. I've known plenty who were old with few health problems who smoked a lifetime. My granny does, and though she did have a pulmonary embolism at 68, plenty of nonsmokers will experience something like that by that age as well.

There are probably a lot of factors involved, and what I'm most suspicious of is that many old people smoking today probably started off with cigarettes with less additives than are in cigarettes today (plus, many couldn't afford to smoke that much when young, I do recall someone trying to sell woo for cancer prevention over smokers that never got cancer in China only to learn that they grow their own tobacco and smoke like 1 cigarette a day, rather than a pack or more as many American smokers today do).

Btw, I'm a nonsmoker, and I've resolved to never share a home with a smoker again due to the smell that gets into everything and it being an expensive fire hazards, so this isn't me trying to justify anything.

[Pix]

As for the packaging itself, I'm curious how it would've affected some kids I knew. Back when I was a kid, some boys found limited edition "death smokes" that were black with skull on it and bold-faced warning that these will kill you. Naturally, the boys had to light them up. (They were upset when they couldn't find anymore "death smokes" with skull on the package.)

I'm curious how tobacco companies alter their advertisement in a society of "plain" packaging (quibble: to my mind, plain packaging would just be one color with no picture on it), since part of their way of getting buyers is the package itself that projects an image (of say toughness, sophistication, sexiness, and other such things, which a cigarette brand will tap through ads and how their cigarettes are packaged with colors and design).

I'm also surprised that smoking has only gone down 3 percent since this started. How much had it been going down before that? (And how much of that was attributed to death?)

Btw, just amusing to me, but I was hired to help an old guy who smoked, and while driving he went through the McDonalds drive-through, the lady who handed him his food flashed a No Smoking sign at him. Never mind that his truck was putting out a lot of fumes (probably not within legal guidelines), and all that the lady no doubt was inhaling with all the grease smoking within the place...not to mention the food itself. Her flashing that sign was so surreal that it made me laugh (even as I was also annoyed that his cigarette smoke was heading in my direction rather than toward the lady in the window).

[LONDONER]

Btw, I'm a nonsmoker, and I've resolved to never share a home with a smoker again due to the smell that gets into everything and it being an expensive fire hazards, so this isn't me trying to justify anything.

It was one of the reasons that yrears ago I gave up going to bars etc. Each time I came home I had to strip off and leave my clothes on the terrace because the smeall was so gross. Of course now things are different and you're not allowed to smoke indoors and more but then there is another downside; the dozens or even hundreds of cigarette butts on the pavement outside where one is allowed to smoke. So, I fully approve of this latest campaign and hope that it will eventually lead to the demise of cigarettes and other tabacco related material.