Nope, don't think they'll deter anyone. They might get cries of racism over the ones showing black people though. Probably the only thing that will come of it.

I always sort of hoped that one of the tobacco companies would have had a puckish sense of humor and marketed a cigarette brand called Coffin Nails, with a coffin on the package and a skeleton inside of it, cigarette in mouth. They could have advertised the hell out of it and made it the number one brand in the US, just to thumb their corporate noses as the anti-smoking fascists.

"I always sort of hoped that one of the tobacco companies would have had a puckish sense of humor and marketed a cigarette brand called Coffin Nails"
Reminds me of death cigarettes. All black box with scull and cross bones in the middle.

While it will not stop smokers it will make raising cig tax easier.

I smoked for 28 years (quit cold turkey 2 months ago) and knew all the dangers, didn't make me quit. People who smoke will stop smoking if and when they want to quit, no matter what the warnings. Robert I love your coffin nails idea, I would have switched brands if they came out with those ;).

I smoked very heavily for a few years. The warning labels meant nothing. I'm not defending the cigarette tax but honestly that is what got me to stop. Cigarettes went up at one point to $11 a pack and at 2 packs a day I just couldn't justify it to myself. I went cold turkey and haven't smoked since nor have I had the desire to smoke. If the tax was repealed I wouldn't go back. I don't miss it, but that really is why I quit, not any warning label.

Can't we just write "You're dumbass who pays people to kill you" really large on the sides?

when i was an infant, everyone smoked,men, women, teachers, preists, teachers, rabbis, mullahas, all rooms in the winters was rift with smoke. when the kids started snitching smokes at 8 or 9, it was because that were already addicted, on 2nd hand smoke.

it took 30 years to understand why, i smoked, thats the day i started to quit, a few years later, no more smoke was inhaled purposely.''now, at 66, i have no signs of cardio-vascular disease, my older brother, and most of my old friends are dead, or have cancer, and copd.

the best way to quit is not to start, its stupid to do things because of peer pressure, that makes you sick, or dizzy.

make your life an effort to do the right things, and, perhaps you will return to the place you were before you came here.

"the best way to quit is not to start, its stupid to do things because of peer pressure, that makes you sick, or dizzy."

Jackie, at 9 or 10 when many of us tried our first cigarette, we were at an age that we thought we were invincible. The teenage years are the same. There is a different awareness in teens than when I was a kid, but still, most think that death will not happen to them and many will succumb to peer pressure. I wish it were so easy to say just say no but as we see with drugs, that didn't work. Do you really think that teenagers will look at a warning label of their illegally gained cigarettes and not smoke them? Seriously, how many people started smoking in their late 20's? Its an addiction formed in the younger years when life seems eternal and death happens to other people.

What stopped me from every starting was the fear of death: not from smoking, but by the hands of my mother, who would have kicked my ass if she'd ever caught me smoking.

Especially since I used to go around putting out her cigarettes and flushing unlit ones down the toilet.

My da has been smoking since he was 16. He's now 79. He's got acute emphysema and copd. But he still smokes 2+ packs a day. Go figure.

When I was 8 or 9, da caught my older brother behind the garage, smoking a cigarette. He brought him in the house, took a clean white sock from my mom's laundry basket, took a drag off his cigarette, and exhaled the smoke with the sock up to his mouth. He took the sock away and showed us the brown tar spot on it. And said "this is what goes into your lungs every time you take a pull of a cigarette. It's too late for me, I'm addicted. Don't get started on this."

That was it for me. I never smoked a cigarette. (Pot's a different story, but I haven't even smoked that in a long while.) My older brother still smokes. My younger ones don't. But they're jocks!

My daughters have tried getting my da to quit, to the point of, when they were little, taking his whole pack and hiding it(usually in the garbage can). He'd just go buy more. They've given up, and so have I. He's 79 ferchrissakes. But even so, it's not pleasant for the rest of us when we're around him. My younger won't even go over to his house after she's had a shower. She says "My hair will stink of cigarettes!"

Given the declining rates of literacy in this country, these labels have just way too many words for people to read and understand, so they should just slap a skull and crossbones label on the cigarette pack and call it. Wait, Disney made pirates cool, so maybe that symbol may confuse kids into thinking that cigarettes are cool too. I guess it's hopeless.

I smoked for over 30 years and quit about 15 months ago because my wife had to quit for health reasons and I knew she couldn't succeedif I didn't quit. Of course about 6 months ago i was diagnosed with copd and now drink like a fish. Anyway, I watched both of my parents die of emphysema (mom at 51, dad at 67) and it was horrible, but i still did not quit because i convinced myself it wouldn't happen to me. Those labels are dumb, I smoked in spite of knowing death was the outcome.

oh, and it is not the physical addiction to nicotene that kept me smoking, it was the activities that cigarettes had become so ingrained in (drinking, gambling, etc.). If you smoke, it is really easy to quit once you decide to. I recommend the patch program

We've all known about the dangers of smoking for years. The entire time I was alive enough to know my grandfather he coughed up yellowish brown mucous from his lungs, but he never stopped smoking. I believe he had merit to his claim that smoking saved his generation though. Before the refrigerator and regular doctor visits, he claimed that a vast majority of the population had intestinal worms, and that the tobacco killed them. My grandfather was as close to a physician as they come without medical school (he worked in hospitals a good majority of his life), and it sounds reasonably plausible.

My uncle went through lung cancer. It spread into his brain. He's been in remission for several years now. In June, my father, who quit smoking close to ten years ago, was having complications from the same lung cancer not yet diagnosed. He was on a ventilator for a week and the whole family was concerned that he was on the brink of death. My uncle showed up from Georgia on the day the doctors had finally allowed my father to pull out his ventilator. (Previously, they had him tied down to prevent it, but as soon as they let him, out came the ventilator and the catheter too). My father was sitting up in bed trying to figure out what had happened the last week. When the visiting hour was up in ICU, the family was walking out together. My uncle exclaimed, "he's looking pretty good, I think it's time for a cigarette."

His lung cancer or my dad's lung cancer hasn't stopped my uncle. Not even removing multiple brain tumors has stopped him. So why in the heck would a new warning label on the side of the package stop him?

Off topic: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20022209-504083.html

In the words of Bill Hicks

"What's cool is every pack has a different Surgeon General's warning. Isn't that great? Mine say, "Warning! Smoking may cause fetal injury or premature birth" **** it! Hahaha. Found my brand. Just don't get the ones that say "lung cancer", y'know. Shop around, man. "Yeah, gimme a carton of 'low birth weights'. What the **** do I care."

Diana, Bill Hicks sounds like a guy so addicted that he's embarrassed to say how much of a hold the sticks have on him. So he plays it off like a tough guy, determined to smoke to get back at "them" for trying to convince him he's killing himself.

My mother was a two pack a day addict. She was one of those militant smokers who did as she pleased, including smoking around her infant grandchildren. I limited the time she could spend with my daughters because of it. Sad to say, but she preferred cigarettes over family. She died of tobacco related problems at 70. My father died of lung cancer at 58.

I have never smoked a whole cigarette. I tried one or two when my rebel friends took them up, but I didn't like the taste or what they did to my head, and I definitely saw my parents as an example of what they do to you. But my youngest daughter, 27 now, has smoked since she was 16. I see it as a rebellious thing - honestly I think if I had smoked she may have rebelled in the opposite direction, just like I did. I try everything I can think of to encourage her to quit. I'm thinking of printing some of these messages out and sending them to her, one a week for a while. I've bought patches for her. I beg, I plead, I tell her stories about her grandparents.

Do you know what the most incredible part is? She's a Hospice Nurse!

If anyone has any ideas for how I can help this lovely, smart, addicted young woman, please tell me what they are. It's one of the great sadnesses of my life that she's doing this to herself.

My house was full of smokers. One of my earliest memories is running my fingers through my dad's cigarette smoke. Unfiltered Camels. Mom liked Winstons.

One sister smoked heavily. One of those light the next cigarette off the stub of the last one types.

She quit after she ruined her lungs. She can't sing anymore, can hardly laugh without a coughing fit. But I did notice a big difference during our last phone call.

She's the only one with any lung trouble. I started smoking when I was twelve, but it didn't take long for me to decide that .25 cents was too much to pay.

Yep. Twenty-five pennies, young smokers. For a pack. I knew I could buy two comics or five candy bars for that!

I remember going to Mom's bedroom and telling her my best friend was smoking. She said "Oh?"
Then I said I had been smoking, too, but I quit. She said, "Good." That was that.

Anyway, Kristen's right. Kids and teens are immortal. I know I was.

Bill Hicks was a famous comedian who died of pancreatic cancer many years after he quit smoking (and pancreatic cancer is unrelated to smoking as far as anyone knows).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2wST3eLBg

he was incredibly self aware and didn't blame anyone else for his addiction. People who smoke outdoors and not in anyone's faces should just be left in peace.

Who Thinks The New Cigarette Warning Labels Will Stop Anyone From Smoking?

Stopping requires willpower; if that's absent, nothing will help. However, I do think that some of the more graphic ones depicting cancer and lung disease could provide an incentive to stop.

As long as we're quoting comedians, Denis Leary started his classic "No Cure For Cancer" film with a bit about how smokers will keep smoking no matter what the warning is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLxvapD6XpM

We, as a people, know cigarettes are dangerous.

We know three hamburgers a day is bad for you.

WE. DON'T. CARE.

Now if you want to start talking about the folks who do it for years and then demand remuneration or free health care, now we can talk.

If anyone has any ideas for how I can help this lovely, smart, addicted young woman, please tell me what they are. It's one of the great sadnesses of my life that she's doing this to herself.

I'd say lay off. She knows it's bad for her. Maybe she even wants to quit but can't. As a nurse, she is aware of the resources available that would help her quit and what will happen if she doesn't. I know when people nag me to stop doing something, I want to do it even more. It's childish, but it is what it is. Tell her you wish she would quit because you love her and don't want her to suffer, then let it go.

The point is not that the labels won't work.

They point is that I am motherfucking tired of my own goddamn government trying to psych me out... I'm tired of my tax code and my actual taxes being used to encourage me to be this kind of man or that kind of man or lead this life or that life.

I wish all those bastards were shit out of work. I live here in the United States because I KNOW what I want to be, and am not too concerned with how the clerics feel about it.

Maybe they'd all quit if they understood how much direct and indirect tax they pay. Directly, there's sales tax and excise tax; indirectly, there's corporate income tax paid by the retailers, distributors, and producers, as well as the personal income tax of all those employed by the retailers, distributors, and producers, not to mention the property tax paid on all stores, warehouses, and plantations.

Then, of course, there's the $248 billion in lawsuit money from back in the 1990s. That was really just a redistribution of wealth from the shareholders and customers of the cigarette companies to the states and a few lucky trial lawyers.

Wasn't there a line in The Godfather (the book, not the movie) about how it's easier to commit a robbery with a briefcase than with a gun?

You're going to die one way or another. No way around that, smoking MAY send you out sooner, but so could drinking, fast food, sweets, or simply time. Its none of my business how you get to the finish line as long as you're not trying to drag me there with you. Give me the same courtesy.

I LIKE my weekly cigar, and antismoking zealots can go piss up a rope.

My grandparents smoked for their entire lives, what killed my grandfather was the asbestos he was around during his time in the navy during WWII. What killed my grandmother was losing my grandfather. And some of my earliest memories were of watching my grandparents and parents play cards and smoke, I sat there watching the smoke play out in its many and varied shapes and tendrils, I called it "spider webs". And hell, my father smoked a pipe for 30 years, still kicking and walking miles every day at 74.

And if 2nd hand smoke is so damned deadly why wasn't there an epidemic of cancer between 1920 and 1980 amongst the nonsmoking population?

Bah. You lay off my cigar, and I won't touch your bacon double cheese burger. (I swear to god if one more fat tub of lard tries to talk to me about healthy habits I'm going to shake their belly like a bowl full of jelly so hard their teeth fall out) Yeah its early, but I wanted to be first to say something Christmasy. :)

Monica, that's pretty much how I handle it. I don't nag, that's for sure. But I do occasionally offer up a book or a hug and "I love you, I wish you would stop", and I've paid for patches that didn't work. I'll pay for them again if she wants to try again. My fear is that the ones that start at such a young age are the ones likely to have the problem for many years.

Amy, I'm going to buy her that book for Christmas. It won't be the first time she's gotten a stop smoking book from me as a gift.

My first thought was that there would probably be a resurgence in sales of those 1940's gold cigarette cases. Anybody interested in starting a company? We could use the new cigarette packages as our marketing material.

Canada has had "warnings" like that for ten years.

Canada's smoking rate is almost identical to the United States' (slightly higher, in fact, from the numbers I could find; about 22% to the US's about 20%).

This suggests, given how similar the two countries are in other ways, that warnings have roughly no effect.

This should surprise no one.

Diana, thanks for the clarification on Bill Hicks. Although I can't speak to your conclusion that he's incredibly self aware, I do agree that he's a funny guy. He's also probably dead because he smoked. There are fairly new studies linking smoking to pancreatic cancer.

Too bad such a young, talented guy thought more of cigarettes than of his life.

But that's his choice. People who think that the govt should stay out of your business can choose to ignore their warnings. You'll still have to pay the taxes, but much of that money goes to pay for your health care while you're lying in a hospital dying a painful, premature death from your addiction. Fair is fair.

I'm not militant anit-smoker. I'm militantly against ignorance and delusion.

"It won't be the first time she's gotten a stop smoking book from me as a gift."

No harm in trying, I guess. Unless it just adds to the stress level.

I sent my friend a book on de-cluttering your life, because she might very well be found under a stack of her stuff. Then I regretted sending it to her, because I'm pretty sure I know what happened.

I'm quite sure she read it, agreed with it completely, and went out shopping for more stuff.

I'm just as bad. Dieting books make me hungry. No smoking campaigns make me want to light up, just because they piss me off.

It's a good thing I never tried meth, because there has been a big anti-meth campaign going on here for the last few years, with an accompanying debate about whether it's working or not.

Pricklypear, my guess would be that your rebellious streak doesn't end at your addiction issues or the anti-whatever campaigns that accompany them.

I've never really understood the "screw 'em, I'm going to smoke just to piss them off" mentality, but I've never been much of a rebel, either.

Smoking is a legal activity, and it should be, but it kills around 450,000 people per year, so I don't have a problem with tax money being used to discourage it, nor with regulations restricting its practice. Same things with anti-obesity efforts.

Abortions, performed mostly for the sake of the would-be momma's convenience, kill upwards of 1,500,000 unborn babies every year in the U.S. Obama and the Dems declare that abortions should be safe (that's an ironic term for a life-ending procedure, isn't it?), legal and RARE. So, where are the PSA announcements and "warning" materials trying to discourage this perfectly legal, privacy-protected infanticide? (e.g., pictures of minced, unborn, helpless human beings)

Oh, I get it. Programs trying to get physically addicted addicts to behave more responsibly are worth a try. Programs trying to get women to behave more responsibly? Fuggedaboutit! At least with the addicts, you stand some sort of chance.

I was 4 or 5 when I snuck a drag off my mom's cigarette. It was the most hideous thing I'd had to that point, and made such an impression on me that I remember it to this day. I've never, not once, been tempted to try since.

Laurie, you may be right about my rebellious streak, but it's slowed right down the last few decades.

Like I said in my first post, I stopped smoking soon after I started because I thought twenty-five cents a pack was too expensive. If I did smoke, at this point I'd probably be trying to start collecting packs with all the different warnings.

I wish people wouldn't smoke because it's bad for my health. I'm allergic to it in the srnse that I cough and gag and can't breathe from the secondhand smoke (even the residue on someone's clothes). I also need to avoid it with my autoimmune disorder because it could cause stroke or death in me due to my hyper clotting blood and for reasons unclear smoking and secondhand smoke seriously exacerbate it and very quickly. It's hard to avoid secondhand smoke because everyone smokes in front of entrances to buildings, in their cars (if I'm driving around with my windows down or the fresh air on and a car near me is smoking with windows open I end up with it coming into my car), and I can't even walk from my car to my apartment without choking most days because of everyone out on the balcony smoking. I don't know how it would be possible to balance the rights of those who want to smoke versus people like me who need to avoid it. In the end, it's the avoiders getting screwed because they can't avoid it despite their best efforts.

Yeah, like someone's going to notice yet another warning label. This comment contains words and phrases known to the state of California to cause cancer. (What about the state of Wisconsin? Do they know? Or are they deniers?)

Ah, the government is once again telling us what to do with our bodies. Whatever.
You have to have been living under a rock for the last 30 years to not know that smoking is bad for you. Anyone here remember Yul Brenner's commercial in the 80's?
I'll add that a quarter of the nurses and doctors I work with smoke. They quite obviously know what it can do to them, but they puff away. Because some people are stupid, and all the pictures in the world ain't gonna fix that.

I'll add that a quarter of the nurses and doctors I work with smoke. They quite obviously know what it can do to them, but they puff away.

You reminded me of a few years back when I was undergoing tests. I was friendly with my doctor because my mom had worked for him. While going to talk about possible tests and diagnosis, we both sat in his office chain smoking. He loved when I had an appointment because he could sneak away and have a smoke.

UW, my wife and I are ballroom dancers and we've had some experience hanging out with some pretty high-level ballroom pros. And you'd be stunned at how many of them smoke. Of the ones I've met, at least half.

How much longer until similar warnings are placed on cars?

Nina, congrats on quitting!

Laurie, tell your daughter that smoking will give her wrinkles.

I never smoked, thought the stuff smelled awful (still think so). In high school, I wasn't cool and wasn't likely to be, so peer pressure wasn't as big a deal.

The thing that gets to me about smoking is having to breath someone else's foul-smelling smoke. Even outdoors, it's nasty.

I do understand it's an addiction; I'm not trying to criticize smokers. I was lucky.

I'm also pretty sick of the government thinking it knows better than we do. Everyone with a working brain knows smoking is bad for you. I'm just hoping they don't try to outlaw chocolate.

I don't like abortions; what really gets to me are the late term abortions, especially the partial birth abortions. If someone did that to an animal, they'd probably go to jail. Also, if a baby gets born alive and survives an abortion procedure, the baby shouldn't be killed.

You may want to see if she could get into NicVAX study.

It works because you no longer get the nicotine in your brain.

But here's a question -- if everyone stopped smoking -- could medicare support the extra money for all the people who would now survive to 80+?

Quite fraankly JayR not enough womne have abortions

Also, if a baby gets born alive and survives an abortion procedure, the baby shouldn't be killed.

Okay, I know my comment is not relevant to the smoking thing, but I have no idea what this means.

Of course it will cause some people not to start smoking. Everyone here says that it wouldn't change their mind or the minds of any of their friends, which is probably true. But it doesn't have to change their minds, it just has to change SOMEONE'S mind. There's a wide spectrum of people with a propensity to smoke and at any point in time presumably some of them are balanced at the edge between smoking and not smoking and a small pull such as seeing a sick baby might change their mind. I'm not saying it's a lot, but out of the millions of people in this country you have to figure it's a few.

As for the effectiveness, graphic signs have been shown to temporarily increase compliance with hand washing and work safety compared to text, which can be extended by using a variety of signs. It's reasonable to think that the same might apply to cigarettes. (though obviously not proven yet.)

In sum, graphic labels can be expected to work slightly better. Even if they don't work on you or most people there's probably a few people in the entire country that they would work on. As long as we're putting labels on cigarettes, why not use slightly more effective ones. It's certainly less useless than a lot of things the government does and shouldn't be held up for scorn.

Graphic pictures and warnings won't stop smokers.

Maybe if they knew how *truly awful* they smell, it might make an impact.

But since their senses of taste and smell are fried, I doubt that would matter, either.

"I was 4 or 5 when I snuck a drag off my mom's cigarette. It was the most hideous thing I'd had to that point, and made such an impression on me that I remember it to this day. I've never, not once, been tempted to try since."

Aggie, I got a huge laugh out of this... because I did the same thing! When I was 6 or so, one day I snuck into my dad's dresser, got one of his cigars, lit it, and took a nice drag. I thought I was going to die! Thanks to that, I can count on one hand the number of times I've smoked in my entire life.

But here's a question -- if everyone stopped smoking -- could medicare support the extra money for all the people who would now survive to 80+?

Jim P, you've put your finger on one of the great cons of taxing tobacco. Every cost-benefit analysis ever done shows that smokers are a net gain to the public purse - they get sick, but they die early, draw less benefits, and so on. The "make smokers pay because they're a drag (pun!) on the health system" argument is bullshit.

I'm in Australia where the price for a pack of 25s is already up to $14-$18 depending on where you buy. And we've had graphic warnings for the last 5 years. And it's not making much difference, we're down to the 15 percent diehards now (myself included) who won't give up no matter what.