While most people were contracting some sort of STD over spring break, I headed home for some rest and relaxation. After weeks of sleepless nights of studying and picking fights with drunk alumni on State Street, I was looking forward to sleeping for 12 hours a day at home. Supplemented with another six or so hours of television, I was sound as a pound.
So I'm heading into hour two of my vegetation mode, when on TV a person in a giant rat costume wheezes out of a subway station and sets up the sign saying \THERE ARE CHEMICALS IN RAT POISON FOUND IN CIGARETTES."" Quite naturally, a bunch of people look on, and the advocacy group leads the viewer to believe that they are enlightened by this rat and its sign. Like they didn't know that cigarettes are bad for you.
Folks, the concept of lighting a dried, wrapped plant on fire and inhaling its fumes is not the healthiest one. Now I'm not a doctor'in fact I have been legally banned to perform any sort of medicine in five states'but if you lit this paper and inhaled the fumes on a regular basis, I'm guessing that you'd be sick. So why are there people out there who think that lying a dead rat out in a street with a sign tacked on will enlighten the masses? Honestly, what's the point?
I don't smoke. As an obese man who drinks regularly, I don't think I need another vice added to my repertoire. However, if there's one thing more annoying than smokers, it's the anti-smokers who find it their job to harp on those who do smoke. There are people who in a given conversation, will tell you how drunk they got off those five Icehouse beer bongs before they did the line off a hooker's ass and then will cough unnecessarily loud when another person lights a smoke.
And these ""Truth"" ads and ""target market"" teens piss me off even more. They talk about the tobacco industry like these guys stand around all day and beat up little kids for candy and drop kick puppies for sport. Now the industry has been pretty shady when they claim that smoking has not been linked to cancer, but the truth is that people are making a personal decision. If you don't want to smoke, don't smoke.
Maybe I'm mad because these groups grossly underestimate the intelligence of the average American. Have you ever met somebody who started smoking because ""When I was nine years old, I saw a cartoon camel light up a cigarette and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world!"" If your kid is doing a harmful product because some cartoon animal is doing it, then the state needs to intervene and put them on the short bus.
Blaming tobacco for one's physical woes is not the problem. Suing them for millions of dollars is. This is one of the most asinine legal practices today. It's like if I sued McDonald's for pimping their products with the help of Grimace as a tool for luring children to the sinful products. ""It's not my fault for eating so much, your honor. It was the chihuahua and his cute voice which made me buy the gordita.""
I don't know. Maybe I don't understand the intricacies of addiction, and maybe these campaigns are enlightening people. But if you are like me, the next time one of those commercials try to enlighten you, stick it to them and light a cigarette right then and there. That's showin' them!
