Sadly, those days are gone, and the best we can hope for these days are the lovely images they print on the packs. I have a little collection of these, and I thought I would share them.
"Smokers die younger".
Younger than what? Younger than older people? Younger than the Queen Mother? How do they know what my lifespan would be if I didn't smoke? All I can say about this one is that it is miles too vague. Leastwise, it's hardly very scary?
2/10
-oOo-
This one fails on two counts as far as I am concerned.
The first failure is that they have never proved that smoking causes cancer. If it said that smoking may be a contributory factor, I might have let it go, but the use of the word 'causes' is wrong.
Secondly, I would be very sceptical that the lungs shown were from a smoker. Considering that recently they admitted in the U.K. that nearly half the donors for lung transplants were smokers, I would assume that a smokers lungs looked exactly like any other lungs. Leastwise, if any surgeon transplanted the yokes in the image then I would have to question his qualifications?
0/10
-oOo-
I have lumped these two together as they are more or less trying to say the same thing.
What is the best way to scare a man? Challenge his manhood. In all my researches, I have found very little mention of infertility or impotence, yet here we have a double attack. Of course they try to cover themselves with the use of 'may' and 'can'. These are very cautious words, and I think the Antis know they are on very weak ground here.
Their grammar is a tad suspect too. "Smoking can damage the sperm and decreases fertility"? Tut tut. Write the following out 500 times - "Smoking can damage the sperm and decrease fertility" or "Smoking damages the sperm and decreases fertility".
1/10
-oOo-
This one is my favourite.
The Antis love harping on about tobacco being addictive. I enjoy my pipe, and if I run out of tobacco I get a bit restless. However, if I were addicted to nicotine, you would imagine I would be happy to smoke a cigarette instead? That isn't the case. I haven't touched a cigarette in forty years even at times when I ran out of tobacco. That is hardly the action of an addict? As for injecting nicotine? That is what I love about this image. The message they are trying to impart is that if you start smoking, sooner or later you are going to be injecting the stuff. This is a leap of logic and a distortion of the facts that is so astounding as to be up there with the greatest jokes of all times.
This one has to get top marks for its humour value.
10/10
-oOo-
Overall result?
Must try harder.
your box of cigarettes you also win an unique piece of propaganda each time you take one. These messages contain mistakes of grammar and fact.. and they are printing them out like on every single box.. How fun can it get? At least they sometimes use "can cause" "could do so and so" and not be always so direct about their warnings (which imply that smoking causes some nasty effect somehow "always" and for all people, when there are different situations and so on).