I don’t smoke.
I never have and I don’t plan on lighting up anytime soon.
I’m not a fan of cigarette smoke and lung cancer is a pretty good deterrent to keep me from heading down to the local convenient mart and dropping $50 on a carton of Lucky Strikes.
Back in the 1980’s, I had a yellow t-shirt with Joe Camel emblazoned on it. Not because I was a smoker, but because the character was cool. Such marketing was common until the government stepped in and banned such advertising that could attract youth to nicotine.
Today cigarette packs contain warnings about birth defects, lung disease and every other ailment that can be linked to smoking. Those warnings are plain text on a box emblazoned with the brand’s logo and are overlooked much like a 55 MPH speed limit sign on an interstate.
The other day a friend of mine from Venezuela pulled out a pack of Marlboros and I was instantly drawn to the packaging. Of course there’s the obligatory warnings, in Spanish, but these packs take the warning a step further with graphic images such as a syringe indicating that smoking is as addicting as a drug, or a picture of a mouth riddled with gum cancer, or a cross section of a healthy lung versus a smokers lung, and my personal favorite – the tombstone.
Such packaging is not seen here in the United States, but would be a welcome addition! Here are some photos, sorry for the quality as they were taken by my iPhone.