Readers may recall my post of 9th January 2013 in which I mentioned that I had complained to the Advertising Standards Agency about that advert. Parmenion, in the comments had this to say:
Seems like your complaint wasn’t completely in vain!
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/too-graphic-anti-smoking-ad-faces-censure/4005249.article#commentsubmitted
Unfortunately, the article in the ‘Marketing Week’ predates my complaint being dated 4th Jan. A couple of quotes:
The ASA is currently considering whether to launch a formal investigation into the ad.
I wonder if they will be allowed to conduct an enquiry? I doubt it, somehow.
The spot has an “ex-kids” rating, which means it cannot be shown during children’s programming but could still be seen by children watching television with their parents.
That quote makes the point which I have mentioned, but did not put into my complaint – the effect of gory images on the minds of children. As we all know, the minds of children are susceptible. They are not fully formed. Children have great difficulty in being objective. They see everything from a personal point of view, which is why they tend to hide behind the couch when a frightening film comes on the TV! Which is also why we protect children from knowing much about the horrors of war.
We know from their pronouncements that Tobacco Control want horror pictures on cigarette packets so that children will see them. They have said so. They want children to see these pictures and be put off trying cigarettes. In other words, Arnott (the minor advertising manager for TC) and the Top Zealots in the Tobacco Control Industry, are quite happy to risk damaging children with their gory, nasty, colourful and glitzy horror pictures (and not even real pictures at that) to get their way.
And be in no doubt that that is their motivation – just to get their own way. It is quite clear their behaviour is psychopathic. I was reading an article recently, referenced by one of group (Dick P, Legiron or Frank Davis or someone), about psychopaths. One of their traits is to get their own way by hook or by crook, and that is what we are seeing. But what makes things worse is that TC people are not mentally ill individually. They feed on each other. The whole group, as a group, is psychopathic.
Because each individual is not mentally ill, we have no option but to describe each individually as merely evil.
12/01/2013 at 23:17
Arnott et al, in their fanatical innocence, have no idea what they’re doing with regard to children except that they recognize that they can be used as a powerful emotive propaganda weapon.
In reality, if you read comments from Antismokers or nonsmokers around the web, something you’ll often see are comments about how the present-day nonsmoker tried smoking a cigarette when they were 8 or 10 or even 12 years old and it tasted horrible, made them cough, and made them sick: so they never tried another one. It’s when the kids hit the teenage years and are willing to put up with a little suffering (the coughing from smoke, the bitterness of beer or coffee, the throat-burning of whiskey) that, if they haven’t already been firmly turned off through a bad experience, will be tolerated until they enjoy the “new thing” and whatever benefits they feel it confers.
You can see the results already as Arnott and Glantz and the rest of them are hopping up and down about smoking by 21 to 25 year olds on college campuses. They’re trying desperately to get them labeled as children, but for some odd reason, a lot of the “children” on those campuses are throwing tantrums and objecting. If you read the college newspapers over here you’ll often see complaints on smoke-banned campuses about how everyone ignores the bans. Meanwhile the ban-pushers just pretend everything is hunky-dorry, ignore the violations, and just count up the number of campuses with “successful bans” in order to pressure other campuses to follow suit.
A new side effect has just come out at one of our midwestern universities where a ban was enacted though. As with most of the university bans, the neighbors start screaming about all the students hanging out on their sidewalks, porches, and yards. The town with this particular university (MUSC? Something like that.) has now enacted a law outlawing smoking on just a dozen or so named streets and sidewalks that border the campus. Of course the students, if they DO pay any attention to the silly law, will simply move to sit on the porches a block farther away.
The Antismokers, on both sides of the ocean, see themselves as Social Engineers, using rat conditioning techniques on human populations “for their own good.” What they don’t realize is that humans are a LOT more complex than rats. (After examining many, I have discovered that even some Antismokers have larger brains than the average rat!)
- MJM
13/01/2013 at 01:22
But it is working for them! The Campus ban has brought about Town bans.
It is interesting that college newspapers are receiving complaints that students are ignoring the campus bans. Do they not receive complaints about the bans themselves, or do they ignore them?
I agree with your conjecture that ‘The Authorities’ are trying to infantilise adults. It is clear that ASH ET AL are doing all the can to equate ‘children’ with ‘young people’ (up to about 24). The good news, according to the reports about the Advertising Standards Agency’s intention to investigate the latest abomination from the Dept of Health, is that people are beginning to object to their children being subjected to these horror adverts.
14/01/2013 at 18:07
Its time these adverts were banned, they are worse than anyone smoking.
These people who invent these obsence ad without good foundation are pyschotic.
15/01/2013 at 01:41
Despite the complaint to the Advertising Standards Agency, the ads still appear. Imagine the furore if a tobacco promotion advert, even indirect, appeared. It would be taken down at once.
But the psychopaths in the Health Dept are in total control (another sign of psychopathology). And they are, and will remain so until someone, or some group, in the Cabinet recognises the psychopathic nature of TC.
14/01/2013 at 22:41
They could justify this stuff if the same sort of thing were done with alcohol, cars, and maybe fast/sweet food — but obviously no sane person would ever put up with it.
15/01/2013 at 02:01
Agreed, M, except that the vendors of soda pop in New York have not ‘marched’ against the ridiculous rules about measures, have they?
I think that these psychopathic regulations take people by surprise because they are so silly, in themselves. People do not realise that these rules are stepping-stones (as you yourself said).
Because of their psychopathic ailment, these people will go too far eventually. At the moment, largely, I believe, because no politician or civil servant has found an answer to the “Children” argument, the psychopaths have the upper hand.