"When everyone is thinking the same, they ain't thinking at all"She said that in the 70s but it applies like a mofo to ASH and their often quite absurd friends.
You see, it's now the consensus amongst failure-addicted tobacco controllers that scaring the crap out of smokers is a winning strategy, despite the policy increasingly looking dated considering regular doubts as to its efficacy, as mentioned here on Monday.
the Ashtray Blog came to a similarly unflattering conclusion on graphic warnings when they ran their own survey recently. That will be discarded with an arrogant chuckle by ASH as being not peer-reviewed, natch. But this one at Medical News presumably has been.
University of Missouri researchers have found that using a combination of disturbing images and threatening messages to prevent smoking is not effective and could potentially cause an unexpected reaction.Coupled with the ridiculous stance that anti-tobacco is taking in blocking non-combustible tobacco harm reduction at every opportunity, you'd be forgiven for believing that their role is to ensure smokers keep smoking until such time as they fall into line and buy products promoted by pharmaceutical paymasters.
"We noticed in our collection of anti-tobacco public service announcements a number of ads that contained very disturbing images, such as cholesterol being squeezed from a human artery, a diseased lung, or a cancer-riddled tongue," [Glenn] Leshner [of the Psychological Research on Information and Media Effects (PRIME) Lab at the University of Missouri School of Journalism] said. "Presumably, these messages are designed to scare people so that they don't smoke. It appears that this strategy may backfire."
ASH, of course, could blow this apart by coming out in unequivocal vocal endorsement of electronic cigarettes, smokeless and dissolvable tobacco, snus, and other harm reduction options. Not sure we'll see that anytime soon, mind.
Mortgages don't pay themselves, you know.
