[QUOTE="MrGeezer"][QUOTE="loco145"]"We haven't done enough to make it cool not to smoke."chessmaster1989
See, here's what I have a problem with. Everyone rightly complained their asses off about the tobacco industry trying to make smoking look cool, and now people are trying to make NOT SMOKING look cool. That seems a little bit ***ed up, because that's just sort of a validation that looking cool is what's important. I mean, I'm all for trying to get fewer kids to take up smoking. But if the only way to do that is by making not smoking seem like the COOL thing to do, then that's sort of sending the wrong freaking message. There are plenty enough good and honest reasons for not smoking that how COOL it is or isn't should never even enter into the equation.
That's not true. Making not smoking 'cool' is merely a means of preventing smoking, not an end goal.
Similarly, you could say that "making smoking cool" is merely a means of getting more people to smoke, not an end goal. In fact, I'm absolutely saying that right now. Tobacco companies don't give a $*** if kids are cool or not, they just want kids buying tobacco. But that's the thing. In both cases, it's deception. It's bull$***. In either case, the MESSAGE being sent is "do this/don't do this, in order to be cool". That is promoting the message that being cool is all that matters, even if that's not the intended GOAL of the campaign. That kind of BS also has a danger of backfiring. Because if a kid abstains from smoking in order to be cool, and then realizes that smoking hasn't made him cooler, then what the hell...he'd might as well take up smoking. There are plenty of good reasons for not smoking, any anti-smoking campaign should be based on the GOOD reasons for not smoking, rather than stuff like "not smoking makes you look cool." See, tobacco companies sort of NEEDED to try to make smoking look cool, because there isn't exactly a long list of good reasons to take up smoking. They certainly couldn't say "take up smoking so that we get rich off of your death." But the anti-smoking people have a bit more than that to work with. and it's a bit hypocritical and shameful seeing them stoop to that level. Anti-tobacco advocates shouldn't NEED to peddle BS in order to support their cause.
Well no s***. They want to be "cool" so they start trying to do adult things such as smoke.the_ChEeSe_mAn2
Again, you've got it backwards. If they were smoking in order to look cool, then that doesn't make sense since these kids were already cool. If anything you'd expect the UNCOOL kids to smoke earlier and more often, in an attempt to try to become cool. It's "cool kids are more likely to be smokers", NOT "smokers are more likely to be cool kids".
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