The ads portraying smokers as drunks and thieves reach a bit to far.

[Randall Flagg]

I find them humorous, and get a chuckle but on looking at the message they are trying to send, I find myself offended.

If you watch MSNBC, you have seen these. They are cute and outwardly funny, but the gist and underlying objective is to portray the smoker as a social deviant. Drinking at work, alone on a roof to get their "fix," and stealing vehicles.

I don't care how much you dislike me because I smoke, but this is like saying all shoplifters are out to eat your babies.

[virgogal]

1. The bad guys are always the smokers,that's why I enjoy Mad Men so

much-----even the good guys(and gals) smoke,and everywhere.

[valerief]

3. That's what life used to be life. It was Cigaretteville EVERYWHERE. nt

[leftofcool]

2. Anti-smoking movement is just like MADD

It is all about money, not about your health.

[farmout rightarm]

4. Smokers are among the last to 'enjoy' being demonized. I smoked for 45 years

and quit in 2007 and because of my own past, I find the Puritans on the issue to be intolerant assholes.
I hear you loud and clear. But you can quit if you want to, I know that because I did it...August 12, 2007 I
was trying to buy cigs online (mainly to save money) and suddenly told myself I don't need the goddamn things, and I just stopped smoking. 3 packs a day to zero overnight. I don't claim any virtue, I'm just telling you it's possible. And if you don't want to quit, no criticism.....many of my friends still smoke.
:D

[Randall Flagg]

5. Thanks.

I've tried the "E-Cigs," patches and gum.

Need to quit but just haven't been successful yet.

I'm going to keep trying but I hate the social pariah status that so many try to enforce on me.

[Therellas]

6. yup.

forcing anything = makes it harder.
i guess it can take quite a few tries.

[endless october]

11. i quit, but i still dislike anti-tobacco psychos.

a lot of anti-smokers need to get a hobby or something.

i quit in '08. Allen Carr's Easy Way book worked for me. i don't know if i would still be quit without it.

best fifteen bucks i ever spent. it has worked for a bunch of my online friends as well.

if you ever do decide to quit, about.com has an excellent smoking cessation forum. i have been on there since 2008.

[farmout rightarm]

12. Well, I thought for many years I couldn't completely quit, although

I probably did "quit" a hundred times...until that day, and to be perfectly honest, I had almost no withdrawal symptoms except for several months I would find myself reaching toward the place on my desk where my pack of cigs always sat...almost automatically. I just had to remember they weren't there. I sure do wish you the best of luck to quit if you want to, it IS possible. :-)

[1]

7. heh. we pay for schip. non-smokers don't. smokers love children...

non-smokers appear to be indifferent toward the little tykes...

[nightrain]

8. smoking is nasty and it stinks (besides being a addictive killer)

[Th1onein]

9. Gosh! Thanks for informing us!

No one knew that!

[Atman]

10. You don't get the message, or who it is geared toward

Many smokers use another activity, such as drinking or driving, as their excuse, a companion activity. You get in a car, you gotta light up. You go to a bar, you gotta light up. But when you go for your smoke break at work, you don't have to drive or mix a drink first. The commercials are aimed at getting smokers to disassociate the behaviors that they fall back on as excuses for their smoking. They are not meant to portray smokers as car thieves or drunks.

If you don't smoke, you aren't likely to undtestand the connections. But I bet smokers get it. And they are the target market, not you.

[1]

13. no. smokers get the message that whatever regressive, crap tax you don't want to pay falls on us...

you won't tax the rich. you certainty don't want to pay for it yourselves.

"i know! let's tax the smokers! nobody likes them..."

then you can be all high and mighty about abandoning *your* responsibility in the matter of taxes and social programs with some bullshit spin about how you are helping us quit.

heh. you know that is not true, and we know that is not true.


put that in your pipe and smoke it...

[Atman]

14. See, I told you don't get it. These aren't tax commercials, their health commercials

Where the he'll is the tax message in these ads? It doesn't sound like you understood my post at all. And cranky, I don't care. I lost my father and my aunt to smoking. Even if it is a tax message, I don't give a shit. Tax the hell out of tobacco.

[1]

16. no, my friend. it is you that do not get the message. sad (and conveniently) you don't...

but mostly sad...

[virgogal]

19. I lost my father and aunt too-----and they didn't smoke. What can I

blame for that? Pure air?

And the obscene taxes on tobacco is ALL about taxes and propagandized as being about health.

[Randall Flagg]

15. Well, DUH!

I am a smoker, I got the connections, I even chuckled... I GOT IT.

But. Just as those you say you lost to smoking, I don't appreciate being portrayed as an alcoholic or thief.

[fishwax]

17. I guess I haven't seen those -- I watch MSNBC, but

commercials don't always register with me. So I guess I haven't noticed them. I've only seen the "you don't (blank) every time you smoke, but you smoke every time you (blank)" commercials.

[ChicagoSuz219]

18. I enjoy smoking.

I don't go out of my way to offend those that don't.

I started watching the new SyFy series called Caprica. I think it takes place in the future on some other planet (although alot of the shots look like present-day Chicago). A lot of the characters smoke. They never allude to it, one way or the other. I'm hoping it means they've found a way to make it healthier... ;-)