From the new movie “Generation Um”
Hah, I actually saw something like this about 10 years ago, in which a drunk chick threw a massive temper tantrum for being told a bar was a non-smoking establishment and she stomped out of the bar, after vandalising her table.
Reeves was also in “Constantine,” a few years back, probably the most blatantly anti-tobacco movie I’ve ever seen.
Hah, OK, this is actually kind of funny. An example of government bureaucracy at its best.
Under the Affordable Care Act, smokers were looking at paying up to 50 percent more than non-smokers through government insurance plans sold to small companies or individuals.
BUT, the ACA also allows insurers to charge three times more to older workers than what they charge to younger workers. That limit is set in stone — 3X more than the lowest premium is the most an insurer can charge. So, the problem is for an older person who smokes, the formula should be 4.5X more than the minimum premium amount … but that conflicts with the 3X maximum.
So, in short, the Obama administration had to scrap the whole smokers’ surcharge for the time being until they can figure out a new formula to fix this. What I’m buffudled by is … no one thought of this or noticed it until now….? Really? They didn’t think of it when they wrote the bill to begin with?
So, possibly for another year, smokers getting insurance through ACA programs won’t see higher premiums than non-smokers, but in the long run, they will.
I noticed this beginning a couple of months ago — a sexy new ad campaign for an e-cigarette called Blu.
I first saw an ad on TV and was shocked to see a cigarette ad on TV, then realized it was for an e-cigarette. However, it was using the same techniques used in old cigarette ads — hip, young, sexy people using their product looking cool.
The TV ad features B-movie actor Stephen Dorff (remember him as the evil vampire in “Blade?”) talking about how e-cigs have freed him from being a “human ashtray” and allows him to “enjoy smoking without infecting the people around me.”
“C’mon, rise from the ashes,” Dorff concludes.
You’ve probably seen Dorff in a bunch of magazine ads. Sports Illustrated and many other magazines have them every week. Cool, sexy-looking, using retro B&W photography (with the Blu e-cig standing out in blue). This Business Insider article is pretty critical of the whole campaign for employing ancient cigarette advertising techniques.
Here’ is Joe Rogan’s really funny take on the Dorff commercial, mashing it up with a really bad Brad Pitt Chanel No. 5 ad to create the “douchiest ad ever.”
The Blu commercials are very careful not to tout their product as an aid to quitting smoking. They’re more about how to avoid smoking. E-cigs don’t have a good reputation for helping people quit. Every single person I’ve ever talked to who has used them has told me they were no help at all. (If you don’t know much about e-cigs, they’re not cigarettes at all, they give the user a little jolt of nicotine-laced steam to curb their nicotine cravings. Relatively harmless and totally harmless to people nearby.)
What I noticed is that Blu and other e-cig companies are using techniques mastered by cigarette companies — make their product appear sexy by using young, smart-looking sexy people to promote the product.
Check it out. 1970s-era cigarette ad:
Now, e-cig ads from a company called Ever Smoke
Yoiks, I can only imagine the comments at the old Smokers’ Club (I haven’t a clue if that is even around anymore. It’s been years since I looked.) on this story!
According to an Ohio State University researcher — between absenteeism caused by added health problems and lost productivity due to smoking breaks, smokers cost companies on the average of $5,800 a year and possibly up to $10,000 a year.
Let me do some math on that smoking break thing. Say a smoker, not too heavy of a smoker, takes four smoking breaks during an eight-hour shift. Say each break takes 10 minutes. That’s 40 minutes a day in lost productivity. That’s 200 minutes a week. That’s 10,000 minutes a year.
10,000 minutes = 160 hours a year. Say a smoker makes a relatively modest wage, $15 an hour, that comes up to $2,400 a year in lost productivity in of itself.
Here’s the OSU numbers. Pretty close to what I did in my head:
The OSU researchers’ calculations show low productivity due to excess absenteeism costs employers, on average, $517 a year per smoking employee and working while sick cost $462. Smoking breaks tack on $3,077 and excess healthcare another $2,056.
There is a LOT of data showing smokers increase everyone’s insurance premiums, which is why many employers now add a premiums surcharge for smokers and some companies won’t hire smokers, period. So, I think that $5,800 a year number, while it sounds surprising, is totally plausible.
The study was published in Tobacco Control.
Great, great news.
According to a new study released by the American Cancer Society, cancer death rates have dropped drastically over the past 20 years — 23 percent for men, and 15 percent for women.
Two big reasons — better screening and treatment, and a third reason obviously — a LOT fewer people smoking (Down from 50 to 60 percent in the 1960s to 20 percent today).
Get this, 40 percent of the overall decline in cancer deaths among men (and 34 percent among women) is caused specifically by the decline just in lung cancer deaths (Lung cancer is by far the biggest cancer killer — the next four cancer killers — colon, prostate, pancreas and breast cancer, kill fewer people per year than lung cancer alone.)
Still, even in 2012, about one-third of the cancer deaths in America will be caused due to smoking (and 160,000 of the 577,000 estimated cancer deaths in 2012 will be lung cancer, about 28 percent), according to the ACS. Another third will be caused by obesity and poor nutrition.
From the report. Estimated cancer deaths in 2012. I put this here just to illustrate the damage done by tobacco.
Total cancer deaths 2012 estimated: 577,000
1) Lung cancer 160,000 — 28 percent of all cancer deaths (85 percent smokers or former smokers)
2) Colon 51,000
3) Breast 39,000 (suggestions tobacco increases risk)
4) Pancreas 37,000 (Definite links to tobacco, 50 percent smokers or former smokers)
5) Prostate 28,000
6) Leukemia 23,500 (suggestions of tobacco increasing risk of certain kinds of leukemia)
7) Liver 20,500
8) Non-Hodgkin lymphoma 19,000
9) Bladder 15,000 (Definite links to tobacco, 50 percent smokers or former smokers)
10) Esophagus 15,000 (strong links to tobacco)
This will be the sexiest post I’ll ever make.
A plastic surgeon came out this week and said smoking can make your nipples fall off — well if you are a woman who has had a certain kind of plastic surgery on her breasts. The guy is dead serious and claims it has happened several times. The smoking kills the circulation to the breasts, which probably already have circulation issues after a breast lift.
He urges women getting breast lifts to quit smoking and says with a couple of his patients, he was forced to resort to using leeches to save their nipples.
Wow, leeches on your nipples. If that isn’t enough to motivate you to quit smoking, I don’t know what is.
Oh, look at this. Those kooky Kiwis have come up with the dumbest invention for smokers.
In some countries like New Zealand, Australia and Canada, the warning labels on cigarettes have become increasingly graphic to discourage smokers (In the U.S., Big Tobacco has actually sued over graphic warning labels, saying, get this, they make smokers “depressed.” I can’t make this shit up.
In New Zealand, to counteract the graphic warning, British American Tobacco came up with this invention to cover up the graphic warnings so smokers don’t have to look at it. It’s like some kind of Velcro band that goes around the cigarette pack literally to hide it. Oh, brother. I wonder how many people will actually buy it? What a bunch of drongos BAT are, trying to circumvent the law.
President Barack Obama’s doctor came out this week and announced the president is in good shape physically adding that he is smokefree.
According to the article:
Obama, who chewed nicotine gum, appears to have quit smoking entirely — an achievement his wife, Michelle Obama, announced earlier this year. And his cholesterol is now described as “ideal.”
So, next time some right-wing troll gives you shit about Obama and smoking, point to this article. He is no longer a smoker and hasn’t been for more than a year.
