Waste of Money TV Adverts

[oldleatherlungs]

It is the season of making resolutions, and giving up smoking is probably high on the list for a lot of smokers.

So we will experience the usual gauntlet of TV ads telling us about the foolproof and wonderful benefits of chewing gums, sprays, patches etc. - with one of them you even get a small rock band on your table that you can listen to whilst you sit there feeling smug about having given up.

Also, there will be the campaign of quit smoking 'horror' ads about the harm that smoking does to all parts of the body - this year they will be focusing on the harm that smoking does to your brain LIKE THIS ONE.

What a complete waste of time and money. When I was a full on smoker I didn't need patronising experts explaining how much harm I was doing to myself - slow death by cigarettes is very well known amongst smokers and after 40 odd years of doing it to myself the signs were pretty obvious.

None of this shite ever made any difference to my attempts to give up smoking - what I needed was a revolutionary treatment. It's just a shame that the same amount of time, money, and experts can't be dedicated to education about e-cigarettes - and I don't mean the cigalike garbage that just doesn't hit the spot.

I really pity the poor smokers who will be going through the pain barrier over the next few weeks trying to give up, mostly unsuccessfully, using traditional methods.

Happy New Year, and keep on vaping in 2014.

[djs]

Dec 29, 2013 21:32:16 GMT oldleatherlungs said:

None of this shite ever made any difference to my attempts to give up smoking - what I needed was a revolutionary treatment. It's just a shame that the same amount of time, money, and experts can't be dedicated to education about e-cigarettes - and I don't mean the cigalike garbage that just doesn't hit the spot.

Well put. Excellent comment.

[kibbster]

Dec 29, 2013 21:32:16 GMT oldleatherlungs said:

I really pity the poor smokers who will be going through the pain barrier over the next few weeks trying to give up, mostly unsuccessfully, using traditional methods.

Got to agree, any poor sods that are going to suffer a few hours/days/weeks of misery using something that in 95% of cases is destined to fail and in 100% of the cases will make your life a misery whilst you endeavour to give up.



Fortunately thanks to the TPD awareness campaign, E-cigs have had a massive advertising boost on all mainstream media and there aren't many smokers left who haven't heard about E-cigs.
Judging by the mental uptake in the latter part of this year, E-cigs are set to explode in 2014 and I suspect by the end of 14 governments will find they acted to late to stop E-cigs (Govs are always way behind the curve) 
The horse has bolted, the genie is out of the bottle and is too big to be stuffed back in - E-cigs are starting to become the future of smoking or the end of smoking (contradictory but true.)

I suspect there won't be many people (comparatively speaking) using tobacco by the end of 2014, on the plus side it means the Government will be more cautious of what they do to more millions of people than what they do to 1 million people and more people against you means a lot more problems in passing arbitrary and stupid legislation.
It also means vaping will become more socially acceptable and understood amongst the populace.
On the minus side it means more batteries exploding, more "children" vaping, more dodgy vendors jumping onto the money bandwagon selling sub-standard stuff and more outrageous lies and propaganda as the Gov, NHS Smoke free, cancer research, Non-NGOs, Tobacco control and Big Pharma really start to feel the pinch as their NRT business model starts to fail spectacularly.  

But time is our friend and our enemies, enemy.
If they are planning to swing the "ban hammer" in 2016 - good luck to them!
Vapers haven't been demonised for 20 years like smokers so they are a lot more militant than smokers currently are and unlike smokers, vapers have shown they will bite back (the 2015 elections should hopefully ram the point home!)
There's also a lot more righteous indignation that after 20 years of persecution in the name of public health ex-smokers won't be at all happy when the goalposts shift and they get targeted with exactly the same campaigns and propaganda they've suffered from when they smoked.

The Gov are going to have to back down to public opinion in 2016 unless they want to feel the hatred of millions of ex-smokers/voters.

[ukipper]

I wonder what the true cost to the NHS is with all these stop smoking replacements ?
I tried patches, sprays and all sorts of other gadgets, all a waste of time for me, pure willpower and a visit to poundworld saved me
The only winners are Big pharma's (and free holidays for doctors who promote their products).

[linzmac13]

Good point, well said oldleatherlungs, prime example being my mother-in-law....smoked for guts of 40 years with horror stories having no impact until......a routine e-test with a new optician who just happened to mention that smoking can cause blindness. She came out and smoked her last ciggie having had the fear of God put into her. Sadly I've been unable to convert her to e-cigs and she still battles every day with urges, patches etc.