Discussion on:

No Branding: Australia's new 'plain' cigarette packages

How come they study Cell phones in Europe, but not here?
How come they study Hip replacements in Europe but not here?
How come health and toxins are monitored in Europe and Australia and not here?
How come the NRA has blocked the CDC from studying the health effects of gun ownership?
Could it be corporate greed and obession with profit at any cost?

Please leave your freedoms at the door.

Affordable...

You nailed it right on the head, in those countires, the people are still very involved in how the government governs, here in the good ole US of A, Big Business bought and sold our piliticians a long time ago, so we get laws that favor Big Business and not the people...

Sorry for the typos-countries and politicians...must need more coffee this morning...or watch my home key finger placement closer...

If this kind of packaging moves to other harmful products the labels could get offensive.

Will they have a picture of an extremely fat person saying ???put down the Twinkie or look like me???.

What about the diet pills that can trigger a heart attack? Will they have an attractive skinny person hooked up to a heart monitor that says ???is looking like me worth it????

Alcohol....too! Buy a 6-pack of Bud and the carton looks like a crashed SUV and the bottles all have labels that look like mangled, bloody bodies! Yeah That's the stuff! Come On, show me the gore!

Anyone out there who is addicted to smoking,...thank you government as that was a money maker at one point, does not care what picture you put on the package! We smoke, therefore, we adapt. Humans are very determined and adaptable. What about the kids around the people who smoke who will be looking at the package and also become desensitized? They will smoke too later because a picture has no relevance until it is too late! Smokers are not stupid, we're addicted! Pictures, threats and bans will not change that. Now what we need is a magic pill and the closure of tobacco producing plants if you really want to do something about our "problem"

If you're not stupid, then why are you addicted?

While any violation of free speech should anger every reasonable person alive, this might be an acceptable exception. Tobacco companies are selling, quite literally, poison. An outright ban of tobacco is the better action to take, but I don't know how the people would react to that. This is the next best thing. Education alone clearly isn't working. After a certain point, drastic measures have to be taken. At some point, tobacco will be banned completely, of that I'm sure.

The fact is, smoking amounts to murder/suicide. You're willfully ingesting poison, and forcing those around you to ingest it as well. Last time I checked, both of those things were illegal. Why should we make exceptions for you? Because you're addicted? One could say serial killers are addicted, should we make exceptions for them as well?