Posted by Sir James Lacaita at bpr6-212.ih2000.net on May 11, 2001 at 22:47:34:
In Reply to: ... in a bad way. posted by Chuz Boy on May 11, 2001 at 19:08:02:
: I agrre that you shouldn't have to take the smoke of others, but to say that these ads are even close to right, well that's just wrong. These ads are a bunch of shit, and it sickens me to even see them. They aren't making anyone quit, and probably not deterring the youngins.
How dare they show the consequences of smoking. Those evil bastards. You know, back in the day when my grandfathers started smoking, people thought it was HEALTHY to smoke. Unfortunately, by the time they realized that inhaling smoke into the lungs would give you cancer and KILL you, it was too late and they were hooked because of the things tobacco companies put into cigarettes. They don't put the cigarettes in peoples' mouths, but they do their best to make it hard to impossible to quit once you start smoking.
: Who in their right mind is smoking, sees this ad, and immediately spits out their smoke? "Jesus Christ, this shit is BAD for you?!" Please, it's not that we don't know, it's that we don't care, and the commercials aren't doing anything but coming off as preachy bullshit.
How do you know it doesn't work? Besides, there are lots of dumbfucks I know who say to me "Who are those ads trying to fool? Cigarettes don't kill that many people. Just old people who have been smoking for fifty years, I can quit whenever I want". I don't know many people who have quit smoking after watching them, but I'm sure there are lots of people it will prevent from ever smoking, and that's what they're trying to do.
: They're just trying to be gross to shock you into avoiding cigarettes, which causes all kinds of non-smokers to overreact when some guy walks around with a lit cig. This isn't how YOU, personally, react, I hope, but a lot of people who don't even know you will bitch at you because you dares smoke. Gene Hackman did it right in Heartbreakers, a classic moment for Smoker's Rights.
All they're showing you are things that people like me and my family have to face every single day of our lives...until our close family member finally succumbs to the cancer and dies. I know few, if any, people who get pissed at these anti-tobacco commercials who have lost a close family member to cancer. When you're five years old and ask your mom and dad why you only have one grandpa, and they tell you that your father's dad, a WWII hero, died of cancer before you were born, you lose a lot of sympathy for tobacco companies. When you watch your other grandfather, also a WWII hero, slowly die of cancer you lose a lot more. When you see him get worse and worse every time you visit him, until the next time you visit him is as he is laying in his coffin, you want nothing more than for the assholes that head up tobacco companies to burn in Hell, and die a slow, painful death themselves. And finally, when you watch your own brother slowly kill him self, starting when he was 13, you want to kill the companies yourself.
Sure, some of the anti-tobacco commercials are silly, but smoking-related diseases are among the leading causes of death in this nation. Some people deserve to die, but I would NEVER wish lung cancer upon my worst enemy, that's one of the worst deaths I can think of.
[James]