"Hooked" anti-smoking ads spark record complaints

[RobRoy]

LONDON (Reuters) - British Government anti-smoking posters featuring men and women with fish hooks through their mouths attracted one of the highest numbers of complaints the advertising standards watchdog has ever received.

Nearly 800 complaints were made about a series of poster, TV, newspaper and Internet adverts which many felt were offensive and distressing, particularly to children.

It was the highest number of complaints received by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) since a KFC advert in June 2005 which featured people singing with their mouths full, which notched up the highest ever number with 1,671.

Read the rest here.

[Lorne]

I must admit that even though I am not a smoker, these ads were pretty annoying.

They just seemed too aggressive.

Obviously some one was trying to make a point.

[Alvin Eriol]

Does the ASA hear about it whenever someone is pictured sporting a large flamboyant piercing?

[The Dude]

What I don't get about the whole smoking thing is that the cigarette companies admit they added chemicals that are carceogenic in nature in order to make their product more addictive. This is obviously not to kill their customer base but to sell more product. And the government knows this so what do they do; the government in my county has raised taxes on cigarettes, but not done one thing to eliminate the addictive carceogenic chemicals that have been artificially added to the product in the first place.

I mean can it be really said that tobacco (I mean pure unprocessed organically grown-from the Shire) causes the amount of health problems or is even any where near as addictive as the product which tobacco companies are allowed to market. I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of the problem is caused by the artificial chemicals and not actually tobacco on it's own.

[RobRoy]

What I don't get about the whole smoking thing is that the cigarette companies admit they added chemicals that are carceogenic in nature in order to make their product more addictive. This is obviously not to kill their customer base but to sell more product.

I had always understood that it was not the chemicals added to tobacco that made them addictive, but rather the nicotine that was the source of addiction. The chemicals, I had thought, "added" to the taste, the shelf-life (as with other consumables), held the thing together (paper-glue) or kept the cherry burning (gunpowder in the paper). Burning them is an entirely other issue, but they were not intended to add to the addictive quality of cigarettes. The nicotine does that all on its own.

It is, as we know, what is in the gum and patches to help smokers stop smoking. Not really a problem in my case, as I wasn't smoking for the nicotine, but rather, sadly, for the hand-to-mouth action, as a means of community and a little rebellion from my suburbanite parents.

I mean can it be really said that tobacco (I mean pure unprocessed organically grown-from the Shire) causes the amount of health problems or is even any where near as addictive as the product which tobacco companies are allowed to market. I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of the problem is caused by the artificial chemicals and not actually tobacco on it's own.

Actually, on the addictive question, yes. I'm given to understand that the current tobacco plant used to make mass-market cigarettes contains far less nicotine than some of the plants originally used by Native Americans.

But the initial problem with smoking isn't necessarily the chemicals or the nicotine but the smoke you're drawing into your lungs. People in fires don't usually die from the heat, though that will kill, but rather from smoke inhalation. You're lungs are made to draw in oxygen and filter out impurities. Like any filter, it can only handle so much, and then those impurities go into your system and start to cause all the fun problems we know about, and I'm sure a few we haven't figured out yet. So it starts with the smoke clogging the cillia in your lungs and then goes to all the other party-time health concerns.

Smoking is bad. Much better to drink. :bg: