If you got them, smoke them

[CovenantJr]

Why is it valid?

Why isn't it?

Because adults are quite capable of appreciating sweet flavours too?

The argument is just as bogus as the one which says alcohol drinks with fruity flavours ought to be banned in supermarkets or have a minimum price, because young adults and teenagers are more likely to drink them.

It's the typical 'punish the majority because of the minority' viewpoint which holds no water. Not only is it pointless, it's also a direct assault on businesses' ability to innovate and respond to demand.

I have to agree that the validity of banning flavoured tobacco is questionable. I have a couple of friends who will only smoke cherry tobacco, and one who has a strong preference for vanilla.

[Orlion]

Good post Soulbiter, unfortunately at the time I can only skim the articles, I'll have to come back later to read them more fully.

My first reactions:
The enhancement of nicotine absorption can not be overdone (if hardly done at all), this is because 60 mg of nicotine in the human system at once would be enough to kill an adult male. I'll have to look up what the nicotine content in cigarettes are, but for chain smokers, this could be fatal. Normally, nicotine absorption depends on the basicity or acidity of the smoke. The more acidic the smoke, the more likely it can not be absorbed except slightly in the lungs. The more basic, it can be abosorbed through membranes even in the mouth (this is how one can get nicotine through cigars and why a particularly strong cigar may make you feel dizzy). Through this argument, it would seem that the tobacco industries would self regulate the nictotine in their products since they don't want to kill their consumers too soon (it's bad for business ).

That said, trying to genetically engineer tobacco that produces more nicotine is problematic and does put a hole in my argument... that's something I'll have to look out for.

[rdhopeca]

Why is it valid?

Why isn't it?

Because adults are quite capable of appreciating sweet flavours too?

The argument is just as bogus as the one which says alcohol drinks with fruity flavours ought to be banned in supermarkets or have a minimum price, because young adults and teenagers are more likely to drink them.

It's the typical 'punish the majority because of the minority' viewpoint which holds no water. Not only is it pointless, it's also a direct assault on businesses' ability to innovate and respond to demand. Not to mention an assault on legitimate drinkers and smokers (i.e. those in the age of majority) who would rather not be shafted by government because some brat somewhere might also have a preference for strawberry flavoured tobacco.

About as pointless as selling a product that poisons and kills your customer base to such an extent that you are nearly forced into marketing the product to children.

[benzss]

Why isn't it?

Because adults are quite capable of appreciating sweet flavours too?

The argument is just as bogus as the one which says alcohol drinks with fruity flavours ought to be banned in supermarkets or have a minimum price, because young adults and teenagers are more likely to drink them.

It's the typical 'punish the majority because of the minority' viewpoint which holds no water. Not only is it pointless, it's also a direct assault on businesses' ability to innovate and respond to demand. Not to mention an assault on legitimate drinkers and smokers (i.e. those in the age of majority) who would rather not be shafted by government because some brat somewhere might also have a preference for strawberry flavoured tobacco.

About as pointless as selling a product that poisons and kills your customer base to such an extent that you are nearly forced into marketing the product to children.

Well, since it is illegal to sell to children, I imagine it would not be good business sense to market to them (I've not experienced it personally, but in my lifetime I've seen very little tobacco advertising). Furthermore, if it were pointless to sell tobacco overall there wouldn't be a market for it... and there clearly is.

I don't really see your point here. Do tobacco companies literally market some products to children in the US, or is it implied through the sale of sweet flavoured tobacco, papers and filters?

[rdhopeca]

Because adults are quite capable of appreciating sweet flavours too?

The argument is just as bogus as the one which says alcohol drinks with fruity flavours ought to be banned in supermarkets or have a minimum price, because young adults and teenagers are more likely to drink them.

It's the typical 'punish the majority because of the minority' viewpoint which holds no water. Not only is it pointless, it's also a direct assault on businesses' ability to innovate and respond to demand. Not to mention an assault on legitimate drinkers and smokers (i.e. those in the age of majority) who would rather not be shafted by government because some brat somewhere might also have a preference for strawberry flavoured tobacco.

About as pointless as selling a product that poisons and kills your customer base to such an extent that you are nearly forced into marketing the product to children.

Well, since it is illegal to sell to children, I imagine it would not be good business sense to market to them (I've not experienced it personally, but in my lifetime I've seen very little tobacco advertising). Furthermore, if it were pointless to sell tobacco overall there wouldn't be a market for it... and there clearly is.

I don't really see your point here. Do tobacco companies literally market some products to children in the US, or is it implied through the sale of sweet flavoured tobacco, papers and filters?

They used to, and to many thoughts, still do, on the basis of the protests above. And if I am not mistaken, most smokers are hooked well before the age of 18.

Sorry, but I have no sympathy for the tobacco industry at all.

[sindatur]

Camel used to have a camel cartoon named Joe Cool, that they were forced to stop using, because being a cartoon it was assumed to be marketed at kids.

I don't know that there's any proof, or legitimate bellief that Tobacco companies are marketing to kids, but, there's a good reason to ensure laws are in place to prevent marketing to kids (but, flavored ban is going overboard, IMHO), because most smokers, I believe do start as kids.

[benzss]

Of course I'm not putting it past the tobacco industry to stoop to such levels, but I highly doubt some of the things being said here. Marketing to 'kids' for example... what age? I would imagine that marketing to mid-teens (13-16/18) would be the best way to get somebody hooked before they're 16/18 (whatever the legal age is where you are), which makes me wonder: does advertising significantly replicate marketing in this age bracket, or does it apparently aim lower (cartoons?) at a pointless age bracket, or aim higher (at adults) and accidentally snare teenagers?

I think there's a danger of this marketing thing being overstated. Smoking has a huge social stigma as it is, and in some cases is seen as a positive thing. Let me tell you one thing; in the UK, tobacco advertising on TV is banned, and the billboards you see by roads and what have you are very austere and, well, boring, and unlikely to appeal to anybody. Tobacco advertising is basically dead, but do younger and younger kids still smoke? Yes, they do, and according to various studies (which I'm sure I can supply you with) the age is getting lower and the amount higher. And for what it's worth, flavoured smoking materials aren't easy to come by here, and if memory serves me right teenagers don't really care about the flavour. You don't smoke for the flavour, do you? Course not. Besides, if they're under 18 I think getting hold of any tobacco at all is the object, not getting hold of licorice papers with a vanilla flavoured tobacco filling.

The 'problem' (insofar as it is a problem) of smoking, particularly underage smoking, is manifested in peer pressure, social stigma, increasing stress and depression and general teenage angst and rebellion. Hell, I've met few people who haven't had a stage in their lives when they were at least social smokers, and fewer still who have never smoked a cigarette.

rdhopeca, you may justly have no sympathy for some of the dodgier practices of the tobacco industry, but considering how they are getting more and more hamstrung and smoking is still prevalent, I'm not sure that they can be blamed for marketing squarely at kids and teenagers and exacerbating the underage smoking issue.

[rdhopeca]

rdhopeca, you may justly have no sympathy for some of the dodgier practices of the tobacco industry, but considering how they are getting more and more hamstrung and smoking is still prevalent, I'm not sure that they can be blamed for marketing squarely at kids and teenagers and exacerbating the underage smoking issue.

"not sure they can be blamed for marketing", meaning, you feel they are justified in doing so based on the fact that they are being hamstrung?

There is no justification under this earth for marketing a poisonous, lethal product to a group of consumers who are generally not able to adequately make the informed decision to not kill themselves slowly over time.

If I have time, I will try to find the memos online that were leaked from some of the tobacco companies outlining their intentions to market to teenagers as their PRIMARY source of new customers.

And frankly, dodgier practices or not, you will not convince me that industries that produce products that only poison their consumer, but people around them as well, are worth saving if being hamstrung puts them under. Good riddance.

[benzss]

rdhopeca, you may justly have no sympathy for some of the dodgier practices of the tobacco industry, but considering how they are getting more and more hamstrung and smoking is still prevalent, I'm not sure that they can be blamed for marketing squarely at kids and teenagers and exacerbating the underage smoking issue.

"not sure they can be blamed for marketing", meaning, you feel they are justified in doing so based on the fact that they are being hamstrung?

Straw man, that isn't what I was saying at all. I was saying that marketing by tobacco companies - legitimate marketing or not! - is being restricted and regulated more and more, yet smoking among underage persons is still prevalent. This leads me to believe the cause lies elsewhere.

There is no justification under this earth for marketing a poisonous, lethal product to a group of consumers who are generally not able to adequately make the informed decision to not kill themselves slowly over time.

People choose to smoke. It is not forced upon them. Tobacco companies are merely providing a service to achieve this end.

'Generally not able to adequately make the informed decision'. This I do not agree with. Not only is it nobody's business on what terms somebody bases a decision, but I find it very difficult to believe that anybody who smokes genuinely believes it isn't harmful.

If I have time, I will try to find the memos online that were leaked from some of the tobacco companies outlining their intentions to market to teenagers as their PRIMARY source of new customers.

I'm sure that'd be an interesting read, actually. As I said, I'm not saying it's beyond the tobacco industry to do such things. I just think that as it stands, any marketing to teenagers is nowhere near blatant enough to cause underage smoking. The things I listed in my last post are far more likely causes.

And frankly, dodgier practices or not, you will not convince me that industries that produce products that only poison their consumer, but people around them as well, are worth saving if being hamstrung puts them under. Good riddance.

That's the market for you. Where there is demand for it, there will be supply, unless the government steps in and halts it and cripples the it. Frankly, I don't give a damn if you approve of my smoking or not, and will fully defend my, and others', right to smoke, and the market's right to supply the demand that plainly exists.

[rdhopeca]

rdhopeca, you may justly have no sympathy for some of the dodgier practices of the tobacco industry, but considering how they are getting more and more hamstrung and smoking is still prevalent, I'm not sure that they can be blamed for marketing squarely at kids and teenagers and exacerbating the underage smoking issue.

"not sure they can be blamed for marketing", meaning, you feel they are justified in doing so based on the fact that they are being hamstrung?

Straw man, that isn't what I was saying at all. I was saying that marketing by tobacco companies - legitimate marketing or not! - is being restricted and regulated more and more, yet smoking among underage persons is still prevalent. This leads me to believe the cause lies elsewhere.

There is no justification under this earth for marketing a poisonous, lethal product to a group of consumers who are generally not able to adequately make the informed decision to not kill themselves slowly over time.

People choose to smoke. It is not forced upon them. Tobacco companies are merely providing a service to achieve this end.

'Generally not able to adequately make the informed decision'. This I do not agree with. Not only is it nobody's business on what terms somebody bases a decision, but I find it very difficult to believe that anybody who smokes genuinely believes it isn't harmful.

If I have time, I will try to find the memos online that were leaked from some of the tobacco companies outlining their intentions to market to teenagers as their PRIMARY source of new customers.

I'm sure that'd be an interesting read, actually. As I said, I'm not saying it's beyond the tobacco industry to do such things. I just think that as it stands, any marketing to teenagers is nowhere near blatant enough to cause underage smoking. The things I listed in my last post are far more likely causes.

And frankly, dodgier practices or not, you will not convince me that industries that produce products that only poison their consumer, but people around them as well, are worth saving if being hamstrung puts them under. Good riddance.

That's the market for you. Where there is demand for it, there will be supply, unless the government steps in and halts it and cripples the it. Frankly, I don't give a damn if you approve of my smoking or not, and will fully defend my, and others', right to smoke, and the market's right to supply the demand that plainly exists.

I've had the same conversation with my father several times, most notably over the latest laws outlawing smoking in restaurants. It's a hot button issue, that's for sure. When I discovered my father smoking a few years ago after lecturing me for years on the harmfulness of it I lost a lot of respect for him. Hopefully he won't follow his father and brother down their paths of health issues as a result.

Personally I don't believe teenagers are sufficiently capable of understanding the consequences of smoking, marijuana, alcohol, et al. And being from the backwoods of New England, I have met people who don't think smoking is doing anything to them. If I believed that tobacco companies were above board and altruistic in their motives and honest in their dealings with the public, I probably wouldn't be so against them and wouldn't object to their existence as much. But I don't.

I don't expect you to care if I approve your smoking, and to be honest, I don't care what people do in their own homes, as long as it doesn't harm me or my children.

[benzss]

I've had the same conversation with my father several times, most notably over the latest laws outlawing smoking in restaurants. It's a hot button issue, that's for sure. When I discovered my father smoking a few years ago after lecturing me for years on the harmfulness of it I lost a lot of respect for him. Hopefully he won't follow his father and brother down their paths of health issues as a result.

The restaurant thing is pretty interesting (predictably I disagreed with it), but I guess that's something for another thread. Or it's been done to death already.

Personally I don't believe teenagers are sufficiently capable of understanding the consequences of smoking, marijuana, alcohol, et al. And being from the backwoods of New England, I have met people who don't think smoking is doing anything to them. If I believed that tobacco companies were above board and altruistic in their motives and honest in their dealings with the public, I probably wouldn't be so against them and wouldn't object to their existence as much. But I don't.

Teenagers may not be, which is precisely why it's illegal to retail to people under the age of majority.

I don't expect you to care if I approve your smoking, and to be honest, I don't care what people do in their own homes, as long as it doesn't harm me or my children.

Sounds legit to me.

[rdhopeca]

Just an FYI.

The statistics are admittedly outdated, and the source is admittedly biased, but personally, I don't believe the tobacco companies have changed all that much *shrug*

If I have time I will try to track down more current articles.

tobaccofreekids.org/reports/smokescreen ... kids.shtml

[Marv]

It doesn't matter how big the warnings on the cigarettes are; you could have a black pack, with a skull and crossbones on the front, called TUMORS, and smokers would be around the block going, "I can't wait to get my hands on these f**king things! I bet ya get a tumor as soon as you light up!"

-Denis Leary

[Vraith]

It doesn't matter how big the warnings on the cigarettes are; you could have a black pack, with a skull and crossbones on the front, called TUMORS, and smokers would be around the block going, "I can't wait to get my hands on these f**king things! I bet ya get a tumor as soon as you light up!"

-Denis Leary

Funny...even funnier, at the time he first said this there was a cigarette brand:
nice solid black box, a skull I believe, the brand name was [in all caps] DEATH. Their version of the warning label said, if I recall correctly "WARNING: Smoking will kill you. If you smoke, STOP. If you don't, don't start."
For about six months everyone I knew smoked them, even some non- or social-smokers. [hell, some stores had a hard time keeping them in stock].
Then they went away.

[aliantha]

I seem to recall that when Philip Morris & Co. was court-ordered to underwrite public service announcements against teen smoking (as part of a settlement of a lawsuit brought against them by the estate of a dead smoker), they were more than happy to do that. Seems their research showed that depending on the way the PSA was written, it could actually *encourage* kids to smoke.

Big Tobacco *defines* dodgy. I have no sympathy with 'em either.

My father died of kidney cancer, which could well have been caused by years and years of smoking.

-- ali <who has never, ever smoked>

[iQuestor]

My Dad died of lung cancer, after 30 years of a 1-3 pack a day habit. He had quit about 10 years prior to getting sick, but by then the damage had been done. While he was smoking, he certainly knew it was killing him all along.

I haven't smoked cigarettes, but have been smoking cigars on the weekends for years. I recently decided this was a bad idea, and gave them up.

[Rawedge Rim]

I seem to recall that when Philip Morris & Co. was court-ordered to underwrite public service announcements against teen smoking (as part of a settlement of a lawsuit brought against them by the estate of a dead smoker), they were more than happy to do that. Seems their research showed that depending on the way the PSA was written, it could actually *encourage* kids to smoke.

Big Tobacco *defines* dodgy. I have no sympathy with 'em either.

My father died of kidney cancer, which could well have been caused by years and years of smoking.

-- ali <who has never, ever smoked>

My dad died of lung cancer, and was suffering with emphazema also, caused by smoking. However, it wasn't like he didn't know that cigarettes were not good for him, as Grandpa also died from emphazema caused by smoking. He smoked because he liked to smoke.

Some people will continue to smoke regardless of what happens in this business, and it's thier choice. Far more people will die of complications due from being too fat, caused by an unhealthy diet. And these people know that having an 8000 calorie burger is not exactly healthy, but they will do it anyway, and it's thier choice.

[Cail]

I completely agree that it should be a matter of choice. But currently our government doesn't treat it that way. If it's a matter of choice, then there should be no more suits filed against tobacco companies. Smokers are easy targets, and they're largely unsympathetic (unless they're suing a tobacco company from their deathbed).

I'm no dummy. I knew smoking was doing nothing good for me, but it didn't change anything.

[Avatar]

Yep, it never does. Certainly the warnings are more a legal failsafe than an attempt to prevent people from doing it. In Egypt, all packs have pictures of diseased lungs and people dying of lung cancer on them. Still doesn't make any difference.

--A

[Cail]

Burned By a Tobacco Bill

Politicians have extraordinary shoulder joints that enable them to pat themselves on the back, and last week the president, a master of that calisthenic, performed it in the Rose Garden. His subject -- aside from himself, as usual -- was the bill by which Congress authorized the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. The president called this "a bill that truly defines change in Washington" and "changes the way Washington works and who Washington works for."

Our leaders are often wrong but rarely so precisely wrong. In two important particulars the bill is a crystalline example of Washington business as usual -- the protection of the strong. The bill was supported by America's biggest tobacco company and by the Democratic Party's fountain of funds, the trial bar.

Congress could ban cigarettes, therefore it could ban tobacco advertising. Instead, tobacco advertising and promotions will be even more severely curtailed. These restrictions merit a constitutional challenge. Although commercial speech does not receive full First Amendment protection, Congress should not be allowed to effectively prohibit truthful communication about a legal product. Philip Morris, however, can live -- indeed, can flourish -- with the new restrictions on the marketing measures by which less powerful companies might threaten its dominance. And lest courts conclude that companies cannot be sued for behavior (selling cigarettes) governed, hence authorized, by a regulatory body, the bill stipulates that it shall not be construed to limit "the liability of any person under the product liability law of any state."

Government policy regarding tobacco, as regarding so much else, is contradictory and unlovely. Nevertheless, it has been, on balance, a success: Americans are behaving much more sensibly.

Before the surgeon general declared tobacco addictive (1988) and carcinogenic (1964), before a character in a 1906 O. Henry story asked, "Say, sport, have you got a coffin nail on you?" people intuitively understood that inhaling smoke is unhealthy. Smoking is addictive (although there are about as many ex-smokers as smokers), sickening, often fatal and usually childish: Ninety percent of all smokers start by age 18; few start after 21. But death and intelligence cost the companies 6,000 customers a day, so that many new smokers must be made daily just to keep up.

Ironies abound. The February expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program is supposed to be financed by increased tobacco taxes, so this health care depends on an ample and renewable supply of smokers. State governments, increasingly addicted to tobacco tax revenues, face delicate price calculations: They want to raise their regressive tobacco taxes (smokers are disproportionately low income and poorly educated) to just below where smokers are driven to quit.

Governments cannot loot tobacco companies that do not flourish. In a 1998 settlement, 46 states conspired to seize $206 billion from companies selling legal tobacco products made from a commodity subsidized by the governments that subsidize treatment of tobacco-related illnesses. The dubious premise of the settlement was that smoking costs governments substantial sums. Actually, tobacco is the most heavily taxed consumer good (Rhode Island's is $3.46 per pack) and the accurate actuarial assumptions of public and private pension plans are that premature deaths of smokers will save billions in payments.

In the early 1950s, the sponsor of anchorman John Cameron Swayze's "Camel News Caravan" on NBC television required him to have a lit cigarette constantly visible. Today smokers are pariahs in a country the Father of which was a tobacco farmer. Someday the ashtray may be as anachronistic as the spittoon, but fear of death may be a milder deterrent to smoking than is the fact that smoking is dumb and declasse. Dumb? Would you hire a smoker, who must be either weak-willed or impervious to evidence? Declasse? Twenty years ago, California cut smoking 17 percent with commercials such as: "I tried it twice and I, ah, got all red in the face and I couldn't inhale and I felt like a jerk and, ah, never tried it again, which is the same as what happened to me with sex."

Three decades ago, public outrage killed an automobile model (Ford's Pinto) whose design defects allegedly caused 59 deaths. Yet every year tobacco kills more Americans than did World War II -- more than AIDS, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, vehicular accidents, homicide and suicide combined.

In the time it takes to read this column, three Americans will die of smoking-related illnesses. If you tarry to savor the column's lovely prose, four will die, so read fast.