Two ways to cut down on smoking without scary pictures....

Today's Post: Friday, 3-2-2012

It’s in the current health news that the FDA’s attempt to add scary pictures to cigarette packs got stopped in court by the tobacco industry.

But there are three reasons that’s possibly OK.

First: Reducing the amount of smoking by at least 4 to one is in everyone’s interest.

So, the goal of the scary pictures was sound and desirable.

The health care costs generated by smokers to treat them and the health care costs generated by people exposed to their second hand smoke runs into the billions of dollars a year.

So, if 4 or 5 % of people smoked instead of 20%, your health care costs and the increased cost of most things you buy due to those costs would be a good bit less.

That’s true even if you don’t smoke.

Second hand smoke is almost as bad for you as smoking yourself. Within minutes it can raise your blood pressure and decrease your blood oxygen levels. That’s likely how exposure to smoke triggers heart attacks in people who otherwise have escaped them.

So, if your chances of being hit with second hand smoke dropped by four or five to one, you would be healthier and safer in many ways.

So, how on Earth can this tobacco company victory quite possibly be OK??

Here’s why:

Most smokers have heard smoking causes cancer. But they also know or think they know that many smokers don’t get cancer.

Both of those things are true as it happens.

But smokers ALSO think magically and believe that someone else will get cancer and they will be fine and one of the lucky ones who don’t.

1. So, even if they see the scary pictures, few of them have any interest in stopping.

They literally think the pictures don’t apply to them. Worse, many of them resent the attempt to scare them into stopping something they don’t believe is really that harmful.

So, it likely was only a small loss that the pictures won’t show.

2. Far better than scary pictures would be a message on the packs with the real risks of smoking written by a good direct marketing copywriter:

Here’s the facts most smokers really have never heard of yet.:

As horrible as cancer is for the smokers who get it, cancer is the LITTLE problem from smoking.

The BIG problem is much worse, AND -- ALL smokers get it!

So, few smokers quit or try hard to quit because hardly any of them now have a clue this is so.

Many of them WOULD quit if they found out!

“You mean smoking really IS killing me and I can’t escape by being lucky?” Yes!!

As I understand it, the FDA HAS the ability now to do this even with the turn down on the scary pictures.

Here’s my version. But to be effective, twenty other versions should be tested with smokers to find out which ones work best and which ones work best overall and with young or new smokers and with heavy smokers and with light smokers.

“Did you knew that EVERY single puff of cigarette smoke begins to close down your blood vessels and cause disease?

Did you know that NO smoker escapes this -- even light smokers and new smokers?

If you smoke, be warned, BOTH of these are true!

ALL smokers begin to develop heart disease, mental decline, and ED from reduced blood circulation.”

3. There’s a way to raise money for the government that saves more in health care costs than it takes out of the economy!

NO other kind of tax does that.

It would cut back smoking dramatically -- and within weeks. It would cut down on new smokers too.

And, it even works with smokers who have no clue smoking is harmful !

(Unfortunately, there are thousands of smokers who have no beginning clue smoking is harmful at all.)

So, here’s what that is:

The court decision did NOT prevent it and it would cut smoking far, far more – and faster!

Have the federal government immediately tax every pack of cigarettes a new and added dollar or two a pack. And have all other kinds of tobacco taxed at a comparable rate with new and additional taxes.

Secondly, offer each state some of those funds in exchange for bringing their per pack tax to a dollar OR adding a dollar, whichever is more.

This has been proven to work.

More people try to quit. More people succeed. Fewer younger people start smoking. And the people who still smoke, smoke a good bit less. And the effect is evident within just a few weeks of beginning the tax.

Of course, it would be more politically doable if the direct marketing copy tested as most effective about the real risks of smoking were publicized heavily first.

What can you do?

If you personally know anyone who:

works in an antismoking group or in the American Heart Association, or the American Lung Association, or the American Cancer Association or who is an oncologist, a cancer doctor, or a cardiologist who passionately hates smoking,

Cut & paste this post and see to it they get it and ask them to forward it to people who might be influential enough to get these actions used.

Even one such try could help!

Your one try might be the one that eventually gets to the head of the FDA or a Senator influential enough to get it used or to the President.