Smoking kills
Nov 21st, 2010 by erickyao
I am posting this blog in response to Catherine Hsu’s blog.
She discussed several important issues about printing disturbing pictures on cigarettes’ packages. I totally agree with the fact that it is not really ethical to add those images to the packages. Also, I do not think that this will be very effective for several reasons. With all the information that we have today about the danger of smoking, no one should smoke because of its deadly consequences. People have had anti-smoking campaigns in order to promote non-smoking habits and many have tried to prevent smoking ages by going to schools and educating teenagers. Government have also tried to regulate the amount of tobacco inhaled by the population by imposing a tobacco tax on every cigarette purchased. Furthermore, most public places, such as restaurants or malls, have “no smoking” signs which have slowly limited cigarette consumption as it could be quite a hassle to get up and go outside to smoke.
Although we have noticed a drastic decrease in tobacco consumption over the past years, some people still ignore the consequences and keep cigarettes in their mouths. Because current smokers have been exposed to all types of anti-smoking ads, I believe that they have seen worst and more shocking pictures than those presented by Catherine. This is why I do not think that those pictures will have a strong impact on current smokers.
Ignoring the ethical issues, I, however, think that those types of pictures can be effective in developing countries such as China or Indonesia, where the general population is not yet aware of the effects of smoking. For example, in the following video, a baby started to smoke when he was only 3 years old and is currently having 40 cigarettes a day. It is evident that those people need more education regarding smoking and need more exposure on the consequences of cigarettes.