Dishonest and deceitful
By my understanding, advertising must be honest, factual and not misleading?
So it baffles me how the Tobacco Control Industry haven’t been taken to task for their constant bleating of messages that are not honest, are not factual and are grossly misleading.
Let’s take a look at the most obvious one: Smoking kills.
No it doesn’t. Jumping off a tall building, skydiving without a parachute or detonating a suicide vest all kill but if smoking killed in the same manner, half of the world’s population would have died in the last century Smoking does not kill. It may have adverse effects on health or it may not, but still the statement is not a fact and is blatantly dishonest.
Another common one: Smoking causes lung cancer.
To the best of my knowledge they have never been able to prove this in the laboratory. They have subjected countless animals to cigarette smoke under appalling conditions to try to prove their point but have never succeeded. The jury is still out on the actual causes of many cancers so to state categorically that smoking causes it is a lie. Smoking does not cause cancer. It may cause cancer is a more accurate statement, It may possibly aggravate a genetic predisposition towards cancer but to state it as a fact is a lie.
How about: Smoking harms your unborn baby?
Generations have been born of smoking mothers and yet people are living longer? Once again the TCI are stating something as a fact whereas in reality it is a very conditional remote possibility.
Smoking causes blindness.
Sticking a pencil into your eyeball will cause blindness as will staring straight at the sun, but not smoking. Once again, smoking may have some effect on another condition which may cause blindness but to state categorically that smoking causes blindness is a lie.
I could go on and on. There are so many of these little catch phrases being thrown at us in TCI’s advertising yet they are all dishonest, lies and very misleading,
How do they get away with it?
Simple: by keeping repeating the soundbites until everybody believes it must be the truth because they all wouldn’t lie to us and keep lying? I only found out how grossly they lie when I started to be interested in vaping – the lies there got so blatant I wanted to know more. Before that, as a smoker, I was brainwashed like everybody else and still believed in the trustworthiness and utter goodness of “public health”. Vaping woke me up alright. So, the ANTZ are absolutely right: Vaping is a very dangerous thing – for them.
Oh, and of course they also get away with it, because it never ever has any consequences.
It’s the old salami-slice technique. Start off with something simple and gradually change the wording so no one notices.
Smoking may damage your health -> Smoking will damage your health -> Smoking may cause cancer -> Smoking causes cancer -> Smoking kills.
Up until recently, the Greek tobacco packs had a smallish warning label which said “smoking can kill you” (note the ‘can’). Since the latest diktat from Brussels (thanks to their TPD), Greece now has no choice but to cover the packs with medico-porn, and the message reads “SMOKING KILLS”, which as you point out, is bullshit.
PS. I just noticed that I seem to have slipped off your blogroll, GD. Would that have anything to do with the IP address thing we were discussing?
So Brussels is now deciding what can kill and what can harm? There is a huge difference. All the packs here [including my baccy] declare with the apparent voice of authority that “SMOKING KILLS”.
Regarding the other – there is a wee programme what I writ that is supposed to scan in the background regularly for updates. For some reason that baffles me it skips sites the odd time. I just ran it manually and it picked up your latest post straight away!
Ahhh I was going to email you about that, a couple of times I’ve come late to the party at Zorba’s because the bogroll holder thingy hasn’t updated…some of us do rely upon it to keep us abreast of what it happening in the blogosphere .
There is increasing interest in, and research into, the relationship between cancers and the body microbiome. It may well be that there was never any direct cancer link to smoking, fats, salt, sugar, or other potential links that have been touted in recent years. The root cause could be the disruption of the microbiome — and over-prescription of antiobiotics may have had a part to play in this.
Very interesting – hadn’t heard that one. Do you have a link to any articles? If there’s a link to too many antibiotic prescriptions, that might explain why a few smokers develop cancer but the majority don’t (much to the dismay of the campaigners), and also why more never-smokers than smokers are now developing the illness?
This seems like a fairly balanced piece (‘balance’ not being a word I usually associate with CROOK): http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/funding-for-researchers/research-features/2017-06-13-the-microbiome-and-cancer-whats-all-the-fuss-about
How do they get away with it?
One reason TC get away with their lies is because those with an opposing view to them have been nobbled. Theirs is the only voice heard. The state where I live has a law that says that it is an offence to say anything in the media or show any image in the media that could be construed as showing smoking in a positive light. And that’s not just with advertising. In all recently made TV shows only the bad guys smoke, the law is so vague that no one is willing to risk showing the hero smoking because it might be “construed” as showing smoking in a positive light.
I’ve noticed that these days, they rarely even let the “bad guys” smoke. Maybe they think that that might appeal to the more rebellious types and would encourage them to start! Shame really, it used to be a very useful plot shortcut back in the 1980-90s in “whodunit”-type items and saved a lot of time, especially when the programme/film wasn’t very good and didn’t merit sitting all the way through!
I learn constantly, watching tv with The Bestes Frau In The World, that there are entire countries where apparently NO ONE SMOKES!
But the ones that really annoy me are those shows set in the past, a past where no one smoked. Faking the present I can live with but historical inaccuracy for fashion’s sake…that really pisses me off and makes me question the entire program.
Watched “Atomic Blond” the other day (a great romp and a good use of 2 hours of my life) which is set in 80s Berlin and London. Quite a few people smoked back then it seems…although not as many as I recall…