Slashdot Mirror
Big Tobacco Loses 11-Year Fight, Forced To Broadcast 'Dangers of Smoking' Ads (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes NBC News:
Smoking kills 1,200 people a day. The tobacco companies worked to make them as addictive as possible. There is no such thing as a safer cigarette. Ads with these statements hit the major television networks and newspapers this weekend, but they are not being placed by the American Cancer Society or other health groups. They're being placed by major tobacco companies, under the orders of the federal courts. "The ads will finally run after 11 years of appeals by the tobacco companies aimed at delaying and weakening them," the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, National African American Tobacco Prevention Network and the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund said in a joint statement.
"It's a pretty significant moment," the American Cancer Society's Cliff Douglas said. "This is the first time they have had to âfess up and tell the whole truth." The Justice Department started its racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco companies in 1999, seeking to force them to make up for decades of deception. Federal district judge Gladys Kessler ruled in 2006 that they'd have to pay for and place the ads, but the companies kept tying things up with appeals. "Employing the highest paid lawyers in America, the tobacco companies used every tool at their disposal to delay and complicate this litigation to avoid their day of reckoning," Douglas added.
The ads will inform Americans TV viewers that "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined," according to one of the ads." Besides $170 billion every year in medical costs -- plus another $156 billion in lost productivity -- roughly one in five deaths in America are smoking-related, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with cigarettes killing 480,000 Americans every year.
"It's a pretty significant moment," the American Cancer Society's Cliff Douglas said. "This is the first time they have had to âfess up and tell the whole truth." The Justice Department started its racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco companies in 1999, seeking to force them to make up for decades of deception. Federal district judge Gladys Kessler ruled in 2006 that they'd have to pay for and place the ads, but the companies kept tying things up with appeals. "Employing the highest paid lawyers in America, the tobacco companies used every tool at their disposal to delay and complicate this litigation to avoid their day of reckoning," Douglas added.
The ads will inform Americans TV viewers that "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined," according to one of the ads." Besides $170 billion every year in medical costs -- plus another $156 billion in lost productivity -- roughly one in five deaths in America are smoking-related, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with cigarettes killing 480,000 Americans every year.
It's enough that we understand the cost of smoking in terms of human lives. We don't need to know how much money could have been made exploiting them.
And who makes more money from tobacco sales than anyone, including the tobacco companies themselves??? That's right, friends. The government.
Hopefully to eventually be followed up by advertisements by the sugar industry reporting the severe risks to health posed by their product. Honestly, if I had any kind of power at all, Big Tobacco and Big Sugar's leading figures would be defendants in crimes against humanity trials. They've killed more people than the Nazis, and with as much planning and strategy as the Third Reich.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
... no one watches TV any more. No one will see them. And I doubt anyone would care if they did.
May you rot in hell.
those ads do nothing but encourage kids to smoke as a middle finger to the establishment its a proven fact. oh and no safe cigarette vaping. (mic drop!).
Imagine....a federal court orders you to advertise against your own business....this is a horrible precedent.
Today it's big tobacco, tomorrow it's a political dissenters. Fake news anyone?
I don't understand why they don't just make cigarette manufacturing illegal.
This is like if there's a guy who goes out every day and just shoots people on the subway and instead of putting him away you run ads saying that he's dangerous.
It's a shame the verdict wasn't that the tobacco companies had to put up an equal anti-smoking advertisement for every advert they use to sell their products.
If they pay for a full-page advert in a magazine? Then they need to pay for a second full-page advert three pages later. Huge-ass billboard on the side of the highway? An equally large billboard by the next exit. Put a sign in store window saying your product is sold here ? There better be an equally large sign right next to it. Paying to have your product prominently featured in a film? Pay for that actress who is painfully suffering from smoking-induced lung-cancer in the next scene.
That way the more the tobacco industry advertises FOR their products, the more they advertise AGAINST their products too. Right now it's pretty much a one-shot deal whose effects will be gone almost as soon as the adverts are in the paper.
Will the government be forced to broadcast "We love raking in $billions over your dead corpses" ads? Unless the government is willing to ban the sale of cigarettes, the government should be held liable for all damages of conduct they assure us is lawful.
who filibustered and so helped cause the death of 5 million odd who died since the 2006 ruling. Let the personally pay compensation to their relatives.
This will not, of course, happen — which is a pity because if they were sued, lost their houses, etc, then it might make other executives think twice before acting irresponsibly — in the hope of making a quick buck.
OK: I do realise that many of those who died since 2006 did so because of damage sustained before then, but there are plenty who's health has been harmed since 2006.
Just the fact that it took 11 years for this to happen, simply prove the ridiculousness of the justice system.
Medical Malpractice is the Third Leading Cause of Death that takes approximately 350000 people every year but do we hear of so many doctors losing their licenses. THIS IS PROVEN CASES OF MALPRACTICE.. not cases that can be explained away or hidden .. these cases have been proven to be Malpractice and Doctors do not lose their licenses and they do not announce this on the news.. If a city the size of Miami was wiped off the earth .. every man woman and child EVERY YEAR.. we would send our Military out to stop the people that are doing it... but instead we do nothing... people die quietly in hospital beds.. hearts are broken .. families taken.. because of intentional acts or incompetence.. either way it needs to end...
climate change.
the UN
The DNC and RNC
Apple for making us gain weight and becoming slaves to phones
That's right - welcome to the new Amerika where everything is somebody else' fault.
Universitires that give out degrees for basket weaving and take your student loan money regardless.
But remember kids, pot smoking is GOOD FOR YOU.
This is an incredibly STUPID ruling. If tobacco companies were in the wrong then make it illegal - the government has fined BILLIONS from the tobacco companies as a form of blackmail (but slashdot will yell and scream about civil asset forfeiture) and now forces them to run ads against their own products (which are still legal) while continuing to happily increase taxes on cigarettes which is the ONLY way these idiotic city council members are balancing the budget all the while saying they're "raising taxes to stop smoking".
This is a charade and those of you who support it are idiots. You don't like smoking, fine, don't smoke. You want to act high and mighty - make it illegal and shut the tobacco companies down or... get this.. STOP TAKING THEIR MONEY as taxes - because it's unarguably ill gotten gains.
But please, continue on with this moronic charade.
(full disclosure, I'm not a smoker, never have been)
Lost productivity... only counts if you don't have enough people to fill the jobs of those who died early.
Health care costs... of a mostly private healthcare system?
How much money is raised from tobacco taxes? In 2010 federal taxes bought in $8.8b, in 2010 state taxes bought in $24b
2 minutes of googling didn't get me any more recent figures.
Makers of fatty foods need to compensate the obese and fund their surgery. I know most of Slashdot is fat so this should be a priority.
captcha: digest.
Considering the amount of TAX money cities, states, federal government get from the sales of cigarettes, you would think they would encourage smoking. You watch, the continued decline in tobacco sales will result in less money coming into governments, and they will cry about not having enough money.
Forcing a company that sells a legal product to put ads on TV saying how bad it is. What a bunch of fucking shit. Fucking our fucking communist government.
Over the last few decades, advertising by tobacco companies has been significantly curtailed (source). Have you ever noticed that these days you never see a cigarette ad on TV, at a sporting event, or on a billboard? Just about the only place you're likely to see tobacco advertised is in the window of a convenience store that sells them, and even those usually just feature nothing more than a brand logo and the price.
It's 2017 - is there anyone alive that doesn't yet know that tobacco is terrible for your health?
Damn, get with the play, that shit was banned from even being advertised on TV in NZ back in 1963.
Yet weed doesn't kill anybody but it's illegal. Fuck this country
This sort of factual advertising is worthless. It just makes smoking look edgy and glamorous to teens - it's really making tobacco companies promote their products.
The effective anti-smoking ad by the FDA go used Brooke Shields go. It featured a pimple-faced unattractive loser of a boy with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a real porker of an unattractive girl with a dangling cigarette dropping ashes, then Brooke came on with "Smoking is so cool" and rolled her eyes back in her head. The tobacco industry was outraged and got their congress critters to make the FDA kill the ad because "Brooke Shields was an unsuitable role model."
Bias disclaimer: I have lost my two dearests college friends to cigarettes, both smokers, the wife from lung cancer, the husband now dying from COPD. I've also lost a very dear grandfather figure to cigarettes (lung cancer.) I can almost believe/hope-for a literal Hell because of the tobacco industry and their paid political lackeys.
I don't see it as advertisement against your own bushiness, but rather to promote truthful advertisement.
If you happen to sell little cancer sticks, it would be nice to let the consumers know what they're buying. If you don't like the idea of your customers knowing your product gives them cancer, maybe you shouldn't sell cancer sticks.
The tobacco companies are advertising that people who smoke will have second-hand smokers to play the part of their mothers in the breastfeeding fantasy that is the real product. This is a big win for them.
Wow you and everyone who upvoted you is retarded. You're really likening a product containing many known carcinogens to political dissent? Really? Because that's a profoundly stupid hill to die on.
As a smoker who has been trying to quit for years dump that money into free nicotine replacement therapies like lozenges.
I mean I understand that cigarettes have been unmasked as truly bad for you and that as a result of the cigarette company's covering up the health hazards for so long they've been forced to do these ads. However if they are now being forced to admit how bad cigarettes are for anyone who smokes doesn't that open them up to additional liability for anyone who can't quite who develops lung cancer?
I hate smoking. I have never smoked tobacco in my life, despise the habit, and am big on health.
But when I see those absolutely ridiculous THE TRUTH anti-smoking ads, they are so absurd that I actually find myself rooting for Big Tobacco
Unfortunately, you can't fix stupid. No amount of despotic decrees by the government against the companies allowing you to purchase addictive cancer is going to fix people's stupidity. It, however, will set a precedent for stupid despotic decrees for propaganda.
Mr. Mackey: "LSD's bad, mmmkay?"
I wonder what the cost to society would be if all the smokers dropped the tobacco this instant and started to microdose LSD.
Those are called "shills". It's a very smart way to make money, but you have to store your soul in a pickle jar.
My apartment complex recently banned smoking inside apartments. The rationale was that the smoke could travel through electrical outlets endangering other residents' clean air. I don't know whether they've bought into the BS or whether there's some other actual motive. The Truth ads even make more sense than second-hand smoke through electrical outlets.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Pretty funny to see how far one is willing to reach to pull out the old Slippery Slope argument. âoeCanâ(TM)t tell people that using this product as intended will cause a painful, protracted death while they speak through a voice box held to a hole in their throat! What next, we ban silly hats???â
Are you a renter?
Motive is cost. Cleaning a smoky apartment is difficult, plus it needs painting, HVAC filters, flooring, etc more often.
The truth is that non-smokers don't like cigarette smoke because it STINKS. Concerns of getting cancer after 40 years of passive exposure is secondary.
The thing about it I do not like is, I feel like it's free publicity for tobacco companies.
I mean at this point everyone knows smoking is bad, and in what ways. So all added media exposure can do is to make younger people think it might be cool to take risks and annoy people by picking up smoking.
I think it's funny that society is so down on cigarettes now as so many frequently push to allow everyone to smoke other substances - I think it's a great idea to legalize ALL dugs, but to me that comes along with dropping the general demonization of smoking in particular.
Hopefully though the overall rate of smoking keeps declining and I'm wrong about this causing an uptick.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I love smoking and I'll do it until the day I die.
The joke is on you. I don't vote.
Besides that, how is this not a freedom of speech violation? I hate big tobacco as much as the next guy, but it was legal to make and sell cigarettes, and still is. How can the government force a company to actively advocate against itself?
Doctors are serial killers. They push drugs and dangerous procedures on patients they don't need, lie about the material facts of those procedures, pretend they're going to treat you but just use your body to train students to get subsidies, diagnose everyone with cancer when they don't have cancer. When any procedure goes wrong, or if they just don't like you, they black list the patient as mentally ill, a hypochondriac, or Munchhausen. They refuse to give you your medical records, and can restrict your access because it's dangerous for you to see them (that includes the psych industry). They fight for zero oversight. They routinely murder patients and get away with it.
I'm glad you're pointing it out. People are blissfully unaware.
Honestly, I think they're scum for what they did to both of my grandfathers, but I think they should only have been required to fund the ads, not to write or place anything. That might have avoided some of the court fights and it would prevent them from sabotaging the ads.
They should start the same lawsuit for guns.... maybe in 10-20 years we can finally get the guns lobby that guns doesnâ(TM)t make us safer.
cos the world is run by the rich sociopaths and as such there are no laws against their criminal activity. smoking is class war.
Nah, they're lying to you. It's because that smoker stink lasts forever in an apartment. You can paint, change the carpets, and that smell is still noticeable.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Why don't you take a quick trip to the ovens of Auschwitz so we can find out if there's any way of getting rid of stink of communists?
Those ads are actually paid for with tobacco settlement money. And they have always had final say about what goes in them. That's why they're lame.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
When the TV show 'Mad Men' was all the rage they interviewed real ad men from that era. He stated, yes there was a lot of smoking back the. But the cigarette company's parties were particularly interesting.
The CEO husbands would have have cigars. The wives were the ones with the cigarettes...and they were never lit.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
I disagree with ownership of high-capacity military-style arms by civilians, and yes, I know what I'm talking about when I label guns (former Marine here). I believe civilians should be allowed to own handguns with less than 10 rounds, shotguns, and hunting/target rifles. Self defense is easily handled with a pump-action shotgun or a revolver. No one needs AR-15s and AK-pattern rifles. They are now beyond ever being labeled as "benign", no matter how the NRA or other asshat organization may try to market them for civilian use. Both rifles' origins are in killing. Full stop.
I will not be giving up my civilian guns, though. I live in rural Texas. Do you know how long it would take the police to arrive were I to have a home invasion? Like I tell people, when SECONDS count, the police are MINUTES away. I'll be keeping my 1897 Winchester trench gun and my Smith & Wesson .44 Special, thank you.
Nah, I already know how PopeRatzo is going to die. He's going to drown in a hail of saliva.
As a former smoker, nothing drives me towards wanting to smoke another cigarette than seeing an anti-smoking ad.
Why? Because the advertisements are pandering. I absolutely HATE having some nanny wag a finger at me. I quit because smoking made going to the gym difficult, not because of some stupid advertisement.
Antismoking ads are as effective as regular smoking ads because all I want to do is light up to spite these idiots.
Just let smoking tobacco fade into obscurity the same way opium has.
So what would you prefer - Prohibition? That's always been a disaster when tried, creating black markets, crime, and making millions of people convicts for non-violent drug use. Forcing tobacco companies to break up and cease operations? You'd have Rand rolling in her grave.
Cigarrette taxes are a market-based approach (aren't you guys supposed to love that shit?) to discourage people from smoking and make users pay for (some) of the immense medical costs they'll be generating for themselves and non-smoker's close by them.
So - what should be done instead of taxes?
Do you want someone to work and consume until they're 67 and retire, or get lung cancer at 57, spend a few hundred thousand to a million in cancer treatments, and then live on disability until they die? Lot of lost productivity there.
After 11 years, well there isnt that many folks watching TV anymore, I geuss they're safe. lol
[($)]
Got their payback.
I'm more interested in how this affects negative tax offsets for these businesses? Is it possible they can run these ads as negative offsets to reduce corporate tax? If so, what is the taxation department doing to mitigate the public costs of said actions?
American stupidity is only part of the problem.
The other part is that the tobacco companies have been DELIBERATELY, and FLAGRANTLY, lying their ASSES off about it.
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it was the SERPENT who got the worst punishment of all for fibbing.
Harm of cigarettes has been well known for long time and there are tons of safer methods to get Nicotine into your body if you like or need the effects. Companies that supply a product that you willingly buy should not be forced to advertise against it.
If the tobacco companies are allowed to produce the ads, even if they have to use text supplied by the government, they could make it like one of those drug ads with scenes of happy people doing daily activities while listing quickly the "side effects" of smoking at the end of the add. The drug ads have already trained people to ignore those parts of the pitch and the tobacco companies could take advantage of this style of health advertising to throw a change up without changing the message in the literal sense.
Waiting for coke and corn syrup too
If you guessed the fossil fuel industry and their Global Warming denier shills, you'd be correct.
"Big Oil created the organized apparatus of doubt...It used the same playbook of misinformation, obfuscation, and research laundered through front groups to attack science and sow uncertainty on lead, on smog, and in the early debates on climate change. Big Tobacco used and refined that playbook for decades in its fight to keep us smoking â" just as Big Oil is using it now, again, to keep us burning fossil fuels.â
http://www.ciel.org/news/oil-tobacco-denial-playbook/
Putinista downmodding in three, two, one...
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Or paying people in entertainment to be seen either smoking or at least holding cigarettes, things that can subtly suggest smoking is okay or even 'cool' to do. They already do this in movies (likely with the cooperation of the tobacco companies) so they can do more of it. Traditional TV ads for smoking stopped airing years ago, not because they were forced off but because they're not needed.
Advertising inside of something else (such as entertainment products) is quite effective and used for other propaganda too. It's also how the US Government helps keep the US on a constant war footing; a steady dose of pro-war propaganda including people who work with that government to vet Hollywood scripts, recommend changes to elide actions they don't want people talking about (like the time the CIA made a change to "Meet the Parents" where "In the original script Stiller finds CIA torture manuals on a desk, but Brandon changed that to photos of Robert De Niro with various dignitaries."), and generally influence messages conveyed by the corporate media.
Traditional advertisements are what industries like the smoking companies want to frame any punitive choices around because the weak spots of that old form of advertising are well-known and easily worked around or avoided. The grandparent article is really a lot less interesting than its current moderation would indicate.
Digital Citizen
I don't like the speech ramifications of curtailing messages I don't like, nor would I choose to curtail your freedom to say what you did, but I also think the reasons why people smoke are far more complicated and require more compassion than can be addressed by calling them "stupid". Persistent messages telling people smoking is socially advantageous plus addictive chemicals engineered to keep users hooked are apparently a potent combination.
We do ourselves and the people suffering from a problem we seek to "fix" a disservice by belittling them. Real solutions won't come in the form of curtailing free speech or such namecalling. We could do a lot better to get the tobacco companies to fund health and recovery programs for smokers, programs they fund but have no say in designing or administering (since they've clearly declared themselves to be untrustworthy for such a task), even if that means these companies end up paying billions of dollars which reallocate all of their profits. Putting more people into single-payer healthcare (Medicare for all) would help focus people's attention on chronic issues as well.
Digital Citizen
I disagree with ownership of high-capacity military-style arms by civilians, and yes, I know what I'm talking about when I label guns (former Marine here). I believe civilians should be allowed to own handguns with less than 10 rounds, shotguns, and hunting/target rifles. Self defense is easily handled with a pump-action shotgun or a revolver. No one needs AR-15s and AK-pattern rifles. They are now beyond ever being labeled as "benign", no matter how the NRA or other asshat organization may try to market them for civilian use. Both rifles' origins are in killing. Full stop.
I will not be giving up my civilian guns, though. I live in rural Texas. Do you know how long it would take the police to arrive were I to have a home invasion? Like I tell people, when SECONDS count, the police are MINUTES away. I'll be keeping my 1897 Winchester trench gun and my Smith & Wesson .44 Special, thank you.
The second amendment isn't about self defense. It's about a heavily armed populace that enemies of the state, foreign or domestic, would fear.
They should start the same lawsuit for guns.... maybe in 10-20 years we can finally get the guns lobby that guns doesnâ(TM)t make us safer.
Tobacco kills 480,000 Americans every year.
66% of the 30,000 gun deaths every year are due to suicide. Given that fact, the "gun" lawsuit should be attacking those who fail to fund and address mental health properly. You don't address obesity by suing manufacturers of high-capacity spoons.
"More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined,"
Makes you wonder why in the FUCK it's a legal product, doesn't it? (answer below)
"$170 billion every year in medical costs..."
Costs? You mean profit, as in one of the main reasons cigarettes are still a legal product. Greed benefits from this.
"$156 billion in lost productivity"
Completely irrelevant due to Greed.
"...cigarettes killing 480,000 Americans every year.
We've carved this planet up into countries, and each one has a government that holds the very real responsibility of resource management. Manufacturing death is a component of that responsibility, which is the other main reason cigarettes are still a legal product.
Cigarettes are highly profitable from usage to treatment AND they create deaths. Sadly for the government, this is a win-win product.
...why are they still sold? I know it is about money and tax revenue, but the overall cost likely does not outweigh these 'benefits'. Make cigs illegal and stop selling them or at least quadrupel the tax on them and add a 5$ deposit for each cigarette butt, package, and lighter. That way the world will be much cleaner
I disagree with ownership of high-capacity military-style arms by civilians, and yes, I know what I'm talking about when I label guns (former Marine here). I believe civilians should be allowed to own handguns with less than 10 rounds, shotguns, and hunting/target rifles. Self defense is easily handled with a pump-action shotgun or a revolver. No one needs AR-15s and AK-pattern rifles. They are now beyond ever being labeled as "benign", no matter how the NRA or other asshat organization may try to market them for civilian use. Both rifles' origins are in killing. Full stop.
I will not be giving up my civilian guns, though. I live in rural Texas. Do you know how long it would take the police to arrive were I to have a home invasion? Like I tell people, when SECONDS count, the police are MINUTES away. I'll be keeping my 1897 Winchester trench gun and my Smith & Wesson .44 Special, thank you.
The second amendment isn't about self defense. It's about a heavily armed populace that enemies of the state, foreign or domestic, would fear.
...well regulated...
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Correct. I am not American so I have absolutely no bone in this fight.
If you look at the 2nd amendment and the letter written about it by the founders who drafted it, you will clearly see that their intention was to permanently enable the citizenry to overthrow their government. The thinking was that that way, government would never get too corrupt to be checked.
However, there is a nuance to be made. In those days, there was a hard limit on how many casualties 1 single person could inflict. So even if you had a gun, you'd need a large enough group of people who also shared your ideas, because your single musket was in itself useless as long as you didn't have a sizeable portion of compatriots also armed with muskets. That acted as an automatic breaker to prevent individuals from committing mass slaughter.
With that in mind, one could argue that private citizens should be able to own arms that are powerful when they group together, but individually uncapable of committing mass murder. So AR-15s are in, and fully auto machine guns are out.
That is the biggest challenge of a system that vastly outgrows its original parameters. As I said I have no bone in this fight. I am just pointing out that that area is one where you can argue either way because that falls way out of the context that existed when the founders argued about it.
link to actual ad and news coverage :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjSeDsXFvgg
So who in this day and age needs an ad to inform them that smoking is bad for you? I don't think this is going to dissuade anyone, so what's this supposed to accomplish exactly?
If their own money is going to be taken as a punitive measure, aren't there better ways to spend it?
But.. but.. that guy's grandfather that smoked a couple of packs a day and lived to be 300 years old. Smoking is good.
Does it seem weird to anyone else to have forced speech in the US?
Nope. The text makes a statement of fact (that a well regulated militia is necessary). Whether you believe that to be true or not is irrelevant. Then it says the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That right is not conditional upon your belief in or agreement with the previous fact.
No, you can't argue for any limit. Not without violating the obvious and simple rule that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
If you want a limit, amend the constitution. Anything else is illegal and throws the entirety of the constitution in jeopardy.
Further, they had explosives, ships, canons, fire, poisons, etc. The only limit on how many people you could kill was the number of people trying to stop you.
Force tobacco companies to broadcast ads against themselves on their own expense, that's weird. They will obviously attempt to make the ads as unimpactful as possible, maybe even do a bit of reverse psychology. Smoking kills... do you fear death? Smoking is addictive... to those who lack willpower. There is no such thing as a safe cigarette... nothing is safe in this world, do you want to stop living?
Why not fine them instead and let the government broadcast its own ads with the money.
Except the serpent didn't really lie, did he?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Nanny state socialism, free market, my grandad smoked 700 per day and was run over by a bus on his 100th birthday, etc etc
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it was the SERPENT who got the worst punishment of all for fibbing.
Except the serpent didn't really lie, did he?
You do realize that none of that actually happened, right? It's a cool story and all, but still fiction.
Subject germane.
Prompted by MangoCats' comment about broadcast irrelevance under subject "Hopefully". Which everyone ignored in favor of sugar content.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Australia has been at the forefront of reducing smoking.
It is banned in all indoor workplaces including clubs and pubs.
They are hidden from sight at point of purchase.
Advertising was banned in the 80s
They cost usd30 per packet.
Packets are plain with with only the brand name in a fixed font with a gross photo of a dying smoker.
These reforms have been ongoing for 30 years, and it's now rare to see anyone smoking anywhere....
46137
> Except the serpent didn't really lie, did he?
The serpent did lie, and in a very clever way. They did die and they wouldn't have died but for the fruit. But we're used to dying as being normal, so it's very confusing and difficult to see the lie from our perspective. It wasn't true when it was said, but it looks true from here.
have you seen those ads? When I first heard about how the anti smoking ads from the smoking companies would have to be aired I thought it would be interesting. Because you figure they don't want to do this (I forgot these were the ads from YEARS ago that I forgot never actually happened) and so it's kinda like OJ putting on the glove. You do everything in your power to make sure they won't fit. I saw the ad and it's the opposite of a commercial. It's bland, it's boring it's repetitive. It does everything in it's power to make sure you don't notice, remember or understand what it's saying and what it's message it. And it succeeds. I could barely keep it straight and I knew going in what it was. It was if all the talent of the commercial advertising industry was used in reverse. It wasn't even scary bland just utterly forgettable. I then read how they won piece by piece of the original settlement. They didn't have to admit they deliberately lied, They didn't have to use this phrase or that phrase. and I understood. They nickle and dimed the commercial until they could make that utter trash-bin of a 30 second spot and somehow that make sup for the lives they've cost. They turned a loss into a win. They pulled victory from the jaws of defeat because what I saw isn't going to mean anything to anyone. Which completely defeated the point of the lawsuit.
Just another second banana
In a sense they really did die in the sense that they lost their immortality.
As it is, as you should have known, my point wasn't whether the serpent actually lied or not. My point was that by being the lying-ass coon dog that STARTED the process, he got the FIRST and MOST blame for being the original cause of the contraband fruit being touched.
Just like when the sheeple of america gullibly fell for the lies of the tobacco companies, the blame goes a great deal on the tobacco companies for actually deceiving the american public to begin with.
Just because the dog taking a nap may be to blame for the henhouse being raided at night, it doesn't mean the fox gets off the hook. If the fox gets caught he's getting skinned even if the dog gets sent to bed without supper.
Perhaps the following warning: 'If used as per the manufacturer's instructions then this will probably lead to: - Lung cancer - Emphysema - Respiratory illnesses - Heart disease In a large number of individuals these effects will be fatal.'
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
I am sick within minutes of exposure. Boo.
Would you rather die or be roasted for eternity in the lake of fire?
Young's Literal Translation Genesis 2:17:
and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die.'
This might point to a gradual progression towards death though.
I must admit though that God and the heavenly hosts (other gods?) were real assholes in removing the possibility of solving this problem.
King James Bible Genesis 3:22
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Eleven years of appeals! If the government actually gave a crap it would ban them.
Besides that, how is this not a freedom of speech violation? I hate big tobacco as much as the next guy, but it was legal to make and sell cigarettes, and still is. How can the government force a company to actively advocate against itself?
Maybe read the court transcript, I'm sure they covered it there...
If they were two separate sentences maybe your pedantic point would stick. As they are not you can only take that the two clause are dependant and if the people should be armed it should be a in a well regulated fashion.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
My point was that by being the lying-ass coon dog that STARTED the process, he got the FIRST and MOST blame for being the original cause of the contraband fruit being touched.
And my point was that you (and most everyone else) have gotten the morality of that story completely wrong.
Who made the tree? Who put it in the garden? Who made the people? Who put them in the garden. Who made the snake? Who put him in the garden? Who gave him knowledge of what the tree does? Who gave him the ability to talk? Who knew exactly how this entire thing would play out because he's omniscient?
God.
So god makes this entire line of dominoes, then punishes the snake and Adam and Eve for doing what he completely orchestrated with full knowledge of the outcome.
The only way that the story makes even a lick of sense is if the snake understood the full consequences of eating the fruit, but withheld the critical details. There isn't any evidence of that. So this looks worse on god's part, because he tells the snake what the tree does in part but not in full so that the snake, whom he designed to talk and blab about it, does so with incomplete information, unaware that what he's doing is going to cause immense harm.
It's well past time that people stop using this fable as some sort of moral guide or example, unless it is that of god's despicable immorality and depravity.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
What a waste of litigation! Anyone with half a brain knows that cigarettes are bad for you. Instead why not make them take out the 8 million chemicals that are in cigarettes? What's wrong with plain paper and non-GMO tobacco; with no chemicals pesticides Etc?
So, does that make "coffin nails" (to use a local nickname for ready-rolled cigarettes), more or less effective population controllers in America than guns?
If it turns out that cigarettes kill more people than guns, will the Great American Guntotin' Public step up to the challenge and start killing more people?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"