I use to keep a pack that I would sell individual cigarettes out of to my co-workers. They would have just ended up walking down the street to the bar that sold them anyway (and charged more than I did).
and i would offer to sell them to guys on the street who asked to bum a cigarette too. Most of them just looked disgusted when I said a quarter.

I was in Germany soon after the EU started doing the "scary" warning labels. Each pack, in bold lettering, had a warning of what would happen to you if you smoked: like damaged sperm, for example. A learned a lot from them, like how to say "sperm damage" in German.

My fellow students from the US (I didn't smoke) thought this was the BEST.THING.EVER. They were like fortune cookies, and they collected these things like Pokemon. "Hey, I'll trade you the sperm count one for 'smoking can be deadly.' " "Aw, sweet!! You've got 'smoking makes your skin age.' I haven't been able to find that one yet!"

Will graphic images also be required to be posted in abortion clinics?

I agree with Amy that these warning signs won't do much to curb smoking; I'm doubtful that they'll encourage it. After a few months, the new warning labels will probably not even be noticed. Regardless of the labeling, smoking is increasingly stigmatized socially, and cigarettes prices keep going up because they are one of the only things nearly everyone seems to agree its OK to tax. High cost and social stigma will do what labels won't.

Will graphic images also be required to be posted in abortion clinics?

Good idea! Because it's not like women who choose abortion understand what they are doing or going through emotional distress already. Depending upon the state, they've already driven long distance, passed through the gauntlet of shouting assholes with graphic signs at on the way to clinic, seen a sonogram, and gone through a mandatory waiting period. Clearly, what's needed to drive home the gravity of the situation is some graphic signs posted throughout the abortion clinic.

"Can I bum a cigarette?"

I spend a bit of time in bars, drinking, watching sports, and talking with friends. This question irks me no end. Spend 5, no, 10 minutes observing me and you'll discover that the only smoke I inhale is of the second hand variety.

Some of my friends smoke, and that question irks them. The price of cigarettes being what it is, and the fact that if you let someone bum a smoke, they'll probably be back for another. The best response I've heard is There's a cigarette machine right over there.

When I was a cocktail waitress I'd buy a pack of Marlboro Lights at the beginning of the shift and sell them for a dollar each. (It always seemed like the people who wanted to "bum" cigarettes were also bitching about the high beer prices and not tipping me.)

When I smoked, I pretty much always let someone bum cigarettes off me unless I was down to my last couple. Seemed like cigarette bumming reciprocity was the code among smokers: If someone is smoking, it's OK to ask (and they're likely to give you one), but if someone is not smoking, don't ask.

It might affect a small sub-group, but the apparent reality is that the 20% of people who still smoke are addicted and stupid and nothing is going to change that.

Joe,
Get your facts straight, it's more than 20%. Also, calling people stupid will never solve anything.

http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/tobacco/facts.htm

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4559

* * *

Susan,

Observing that smokers are sutpid isn't meant to solve anything; it's just pointing out the obvious. Let me be even more clear; if you smoke, you are beyond stupid. If you smoke, you are a fucking moron.

Just stating the facts.

"sutpid" = "stupid"

However, I suppose to save the self esteem of smokers, we'll say they are "sutpid."

This also shows how bad government is at doing anything. That campaign probably cost buttloads of money.

I watched a friend die of lung cancer (she was a nonsmoker) and I've seen old people suffering from emphysema (former smokers).

If you smoke, you are not just stupid, but an utter fucking moron. It's not about solving things, it's about telling the truth.

The suffering you go through with emphysema alone -- not being able to breathe -- is awful. Lung cancer suffering is beyond horrible. Imagine somebody you love having to pump bloody fluid from their lungs. Imagine that and tell me smoking isn't utterly fucking moronic.

"I watched a friend die of lung cancer (she was a nonsmoker)"

ah, she is missed, too.

Agreed, smoking is beyond retarded. Unfortunately, most of the addicts know this, and simply don't have the inner resolve to quit. Many of them start off to look cool. Luckily, nowadays smoking is beginning to look less cool and more revolting.

Best book on the topic is Allen Carr's How to Quit Smoking

Along with the rest of my family, I watched my mother die of emphysema in the hospital 10 years ago. She smoked from the time she was a teenager until she was diagnosed, and the doctor told her "You can either smoke or live." She chose to quit, but the damage was done.

My father was just admitted to the hospital yesterday with shortness of breath- it's the third time this year. He has emphysema, too. He's been on oxygen continuously for the past year or so. He still smokes. While he's using oxygen. He's set his nose hair on fire more than once. I don't think he's going to live to see his next birthday.

Not really going anywhere with this, but if just one smoker reads this and considers quitting so that their family doesn't have to go through the same thing, it'd make my day.

If you smoke, you are not just stupid, but an utter fucking moron. It's not about solving things, it's about telling the truth. -- Amy Alkon at June 22, 2011 11:01 AM

Amy,

I'm one of the utter fucking morons you are talking about.

I'm just going to ask some simple questions of you:

• Why should a privately owned industry be compelled on how to advertise or sell their product?


• Why should this legally provided product have more (or less) restrictions than alcohol?


• Should pot be legal and tobacco illegal?


• If this campaign drops the smoking rate to 5% -- who will pay for SCHIP?


• Where have I asked you (or anyone else) to pay for my addiction?

Just asking....

I quit smoking in 1983. That weekend my uncle was buried after dieing of cancer. I was also admitted into a hospital that weekend for a bleeding ulcer. I was not allowed to smoke in the hospital. I never started back after I got out. I have smoked a cigar twice since then, once when my first grandson was born and again when my step-son got married. I really enjoy cigars. I never really enjoyed cigarettes. They were just sort of something I did.

JIm the reason cigarette compnies are regulated out the ass is that they lied about te crap tey were adding to their product, and most importantly they lied to congress who took the afffront personally and decided to make an example of them.

I live in the lower upper Midwest, moved here from California, and like it better. It gets kind of cold here in winter, like if you are outside in the wind unprotected for more than five minutes count on getting frost bite. Cold winters are great at keeping down the numbers of panhandlers that might otherwise infest the area.
You can see just how bad the smokers have a jones for nicotine when they huddle around the outside corners of the building in indoor office wear trying to suck down fast, enough cigarettes to make it through to their next break. Some of the gals in their light blouses get really perky after an outdoor cigarette in sub zero weather. some of the more enlightened companies install a glass walled "shack of death" near the property edge where the smokers can go in winter to suck a couple down whole at least being out of the wind. Glass walls, so administration can check them out with binoculars from inside the main building and make sure it is only cigies they are sucking.

Amy,

Some of it was venting. Some of it was that you weren't your usual eloquent self in making this post. As a brief blog entry it fell a little flat on the connect the dots that you were objecting to the program, not just smokers.

As a brief blog entry it fell a little flat on the connect the dots that you were objecting to the program, not just smokers.

I said two things above: 1. The campaign is counterproductive.

2. You have to be an idiot to smoke.

Methinks you're a little sensitive about #2, not that I was lacking in "eloquence" on a two-line blog item.