i'm tired of this planet

Yeah, because medicine, unlike cigarettes, has no practical application.

And that's totally what direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical marketing is about: practical medicines and their application. Which is why they needed to inform people. With big budget advertisements purchased during prime time blocks. And sleek ad campaigns. But nothing like what those insidious tobacco companies were doing.

*3 or 4 cigarettes, not packs* :)

The idea of the pictures on cigarette packs is great, they should just extrapolate it to apply to other consumer goods.

They could print the images of mangled victims of a car crash on the hood of your new Lexus, or pictures of STD infected genitalia outside of Nightclubs. Cigarettes are just the tip of the iceberg, there's a lot more we can do with this.

You should really stop smoking IZ. It's a completely unnecessary, expensive, and unfortunate thing for someone to do.

Tasmania has actually gone a step further and they are increasing the age of legal tobacco sales by one year every year. So essentially the people that have already started can legally buy it but anyone younger will be denied the legal sales and that will increase over time, so in ten years 30 year olds won't be able to purchase it, etc.

JBF yeah I'm taking babysteps. The whole reason why I started smoking was so I could get more breaks at this job I had in college so I could get more studying done for 10 minutes at a time (and to get away from customers for a second). So unlike most kids who might have started at 13 or so, I didn't start until I was 19. The plan was to quit when my ex wife turned 30, because that's when she was going to quit, but things went tits-up in our relationship just a few months before that, so we were both smoking even more, mostly out of stress. I just turned 33 and it seems like most of my new friends are non-smokers so I'm at the point where I actively seek out friends and dates who don't smoke.

As for the labels, yeah I would've loved something like rotted teeth or black lungs or whatever when I was making the decision to buy my first pack. There's still a bit of a social aspect, like you're at the bar and step outside and someone else is out there.. you're either going to continue to stare into nowhere or strike up a conversation that might lead to something else, but really that's about the only benefit of cancer sticks.

We have the 'disturbing' images on our cigarette packs in Canada. Thing is, it's extremely easy to ignore things that are disturbing. Hell, they've slacked off from showing diseased lungs and transitioned to human-interest blurbs about people with tracheotemies and some lady named (no shit) Barb Tarbox.

Worst case scenario, guys can always ask for a pack that warns about the dangers of smoking while pregnant, and the ladies can ask for one that warns about impotency. Yes, that actually happens, and it's always funny.

Yeah. Like, there's a reason why I don't buy fur and don't buy diamonds and don't eat meat, and while I don't need a person outside protesting fur and showing me pictures of skinned foxes or dead bodies in Congo or mutilated cows as I'm on my lunch break, I appreciate the reminder. OK, no more dead animals or blood diamonds, thumbs up guys. With you 100%. But when I was a heavy smoker, it could say on every pack that someone took one in every one hundred smokes from the factory line and shoved it directly up their ass and like Homer Simpson, I'd say "I like those odds." So really, the labels wouldn't bother me, especially then, and I'd probably just cover it up with a sharpie because it was me and not the world being aware of what I was doing to myself. Assuming everyone's seen what they did at the end, yeah, that's the tactic. Get 'em hooked when they're young. To never touch the fucking stuff.

Making a strange brand will do little if anything to prevent smoking. In fact, what might actually work is to re-introduce the brandless white discount packs. Make it look as plain as possible, and maybe write "budget" or something like that as the brand name. Or better still, nothing at all, just a white pack.

A good friend of mine loves to smoke, and he'd buy a can of Prince Albert or something like that and roll them. If you haven't tried this, it's the only reasonable way to smoke, because you'll get _fresh_ tobacco with limited additives. The packs are _always_ stale, although some more than others. Plus because of the tax it's a hell of a lot cheaper. So why don't smokers flock to this in droves? No brand.

I rolled drum or bali hi tobacco throughout college, but my OCD got the best of me and found myself doing nothing but rolling cigarettes at work. It was fun too because I'd put some weed in one of them at random and never knew which, but I think I was rolling at the speed of about 200 an hour. I did the math and the brand I smoke is still cheaper (.99 US a pack), and like I said as far as I know the company itself hasn't committed any atrocities but yeah. At the time it was a lot cheaper, but now that I'm down to just a few, I think I'd wind up with a shit ton of stale tobacco on my hands, literally.

It's actually the reverse...real life villains are so over-the-top and outlandish that you cant use them in fiction without breaking the disbelief barrier.