The-shelton
You have made my point. Almost everything can be banned with the excuse that "It will cause my insurance to go up." We will loose many freedoms under this mentality. This is especially true if a National Health Care is put into place.
For example, ice cream can and fast food can be heavily regulated under the excuse that they cause obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Motorcycles can be banned because if you have a wreck on one the injuries are usually substantial. Overly load music can be banned because it causes hearing damage; which to treat will cause premiums to go up. And the list goes on...
Freedom is so important and valuable, a price cannot be put on it. The true cost of freedom is BLOOD. This is how it was purchased. Brave men fought and died for our freedoms, and we dishonor them by stripping the very thing that they suffered horrendously for while in battle, and some gave their lives for.
In today's society, their are many who want to follow a fascist path of banning anything they do not agree with or annoys them. Their are many things that I do not agree with and find disturbing; but because I love freedom, I fight for others rights to live as they choose.
Modern Outcasts
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
Are glamorous depictions of smoking in movies and ads counteracting the pariah effect?
The rate of smoking has gone way down. It's about 20 percent now. Why hasn't the rate of smoking in movies gone down? There are different theories for that. One theory is that the tobacco industry has very cleverly manipulated the people in the movies or the writers. They deny that. The second theory is that certain very prominent movie stars themselves smoke, so they insist smoking be written into their roles. The third one is that it's writer's freedom. If the character is unsavory, they may have them smoke to show that. Or it's a wonderful prop.
Are we exporting the problem to Eastern Europe and Asia?
It's not uncommon to find male smoking rates in Asia at 60 to 70 percent and for men in the former Iron Curtain [countries] at 40 to 50 percent. In many of those countries doctors have high smoking rates. In the United States it's 1 percent. The tobacco industry in this country is fighting a rear-guard action. But they see all these overseas markets, and that's where the future profits are.
So over there the pariah effect is a ways off?
There are four different stages. Stage one, where the smoking rates are low. Stage two, in the Eastern European countries and men in Asia, is when the rates really go up, as it was in the United States in the '30s, '40s and '50s. Stage three is where we are now, where it's coming down. And stage four is maybe like Singapore or like doctors in the United States, where we're on our way to having very, very low rates.
Why is Singapore different from other Asian countries?
The government there rules with an iron hand, and it's decided smoking is bad.
What about other countries?
In the Muslim countries, some of the Asian countries, you're a pariah if you smoke and you're a woman because of stereotypes of the women's role. In some Asian countries there are social pressures to smoke. If you're a man, and you're a businessman, it's polite to hand them a business card and a cigarette. Ireland is a smoke-free country. If you go to a pub and … you want to smoke, you've got to go outside. It's the triumph of the science over social norms.
© 2008
Discuss