Large Fierce Mammal

The source of this wisdom is {link:http://www.h34dup.com/artwork/typcut-are-you-happy/}here{/link}.

Under the title New tobacco warnings unveiled, CBC News opened their 30 December 2010 article with,

“The federal government has introduced new rules that force tobacco companies to include larger and more graphic anti-smoking warning labels on cigarette packs.

The new anti-smoking ads will now cover 75 per cent of the pack, instead of the current 50 per cent requirement, Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said.”

Here’s more from today’s CTV coverage of the same story titled Doctors’ group supports cigarette warning update. Following are some choice portions with LFM observations thrown in – quotes from the article are in italics while my comments are in regular type:

“Neil Collishaw, the research director at Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, says the current labelling system has been in place for 10 years and it is time for it to be updated.”

This means that 10 years ago the people promoting the present system were selling it as a sure fire way to attack the smoking demon.

“‘We do know that bigger warnings are better and that warnings need to be changed every once in a while,’ Collishaw told CTV’s Canada AM during a telephone interview from Ottawa on Thursday morning.”

You know that bigger is better, so after 10 years you’re making a giant leap from 50% to 75% coverage of a box I could hide under my left ass cheek? News flash asshole – a cigarette package is only so big. Why stop at 75% coverage for your gross out art? Why not demand LARGER PACKAGES? I’d say no smaller than the box a full size deep freeze comes in. Give yourself some room to work man! At least then, even if smokers are too blinded by their addiction to notice how disgusting the packaging is, we can at least incite non-smokers to kick the shit out of them when they suddenly find themselves unable to eat because they saw the box of smokes being carried through the parking lot to the cube van smokers will need to support the habit.

“‘There are many countries that have emulated Canada…but some of those countries have already renewed their warnings two, three, and some even four times in that period of time and Canada still has the same ones,’ he said.”

Yes yes, that’s all well and good, but I’m left wondering if all those warning updates actually made an improvement in the number of smoking deaths in those countries, or did the updates referred to have more to do with the normal bureaucratic profile? You know, the one that says it’s less important to actually do something than it is to appear to be doing something. After all, if you expect me to accept your statements as unassailable fact, then be prepared to stand and deliver should I or anyone else demand proof.

“Collishaw said that smoking remains the leading cause of death in Canada, killing an estimated 37,000 people each year.”

In show business, you’re only as good as your last performance, and if we’re putting time and, most importantly money, into making this 75% thing happen, I really want to hear why the 50% thing from last time didn’t work. Is there a graph that correlates percentage of package coverage to death rate? Honestly, putting a warning that the program I am about to watch contains “graphic forensic content” has never stopped me from watching an episode of Bones. Mmmmm … Temperance.

In response to all of this, I think Mrs. LFM put it best when she said, “They could cover cigarette boxes with actual cancer and people would still buy cigarettes.” I completely endorse her comment, and have already launched a plan to market Carcenowipes against that day.

Dear, sweet, intelligent reader; I know you don’t need me to tell you that we require no further studies to prove that cigarette smoking is addictive, and that if you indulge in the practice as it’s intended to be done, you are guaranteed to become addicted to nicotine. The responsibility for that consequence, and everything else that might come with it, rests squarely on the head of the person holding the butt, outside for all to see while they’re wind blown, rained on, and/or freezing.

Tobacco marketing is routinely blamed for this because every addiction has long since been redefined as a disease. Thereby every sinner who got themselves into nicotine addiction in the first place is granted the status of “victim” whereby they are washed clean of all responsibility. The grist mill that postures on the Great Truth that, if we only waste resources on yet another meaningless and empty gesture we’ll cure the social evil of <fill in the blank>, or at least raise awareness (FUCK but I hate that phrase), keeps on cranking. And let’s not forget the always warm and fuzzy argument that if it saves only one life, it’s worth it. What a load of bullshit.

On that note, I’d like to pause for a word on the subject of raised awareness by means of empty gestures uttered by none other than the great, and regrettably late, George Carlin.

The “if it only saves one life” argument owes its effectiveness to an unfortunately common trait of knee-jerk, I’d prefer somebody else did my thinking for me, mindlessness. Every time the morning news reports for example, that a man was found stabbed to death on the Halifax Common, or that someone was fatally shot walking down the street, the default setting for many is to picture the poor innocent family man, struck down in the prime of life as his loving pregnant wife and their six children waited, unknowing, at home for a solemn policeman to deliver the terrible news. The fact that, as often as not, the so called victim was a waste of protoplasm motherfucker who got what he asked for from another of his ilk never seems to alter this.

Both Mrs. LFM and I have lost our fathers to cancer. Neither of us has ever smoked cigarettes, and neither of us inhales any smoke that doesn’t come from sitting downwind of a camp fire. In fact, if you visit our house and we see smoke coming out of you, we will conclude you’re on fire and take the necessary action. We both feel the same eye twitching effect whenever we hear someone’s breathless expression of admiration for the bravery of someone who has just lost a battle with cancer.

A fighter pilot who loses power over a city, who has plenty of time to eject safely but dies because he stayed at the controls to ensure that his plane crashes in an unpopulated area, is brave. The poor unfortunates who perished when Swissair Flight 111 dove almost vertically into St. Margaret’s Bay can be called many things, but the way they died does not make them brave. They were simply, and reluctantly, along for the ride, and no strength of character would change that.