warning!!!!!

The FDA unveiled 36 new designs which will be affixed to all packages of cigarettes sold in the USA following a trend that other countries have been going through for years.  

We know that packs of smokes now carry the lame surgeon general warning which I doubt ever dissuaded anybody from lighting up just as I doubt a picture of a kid covered in smoke will either.   So the way I see it this is yet another gigantic waste of government money.   In MadMen they talked about all those fancy ads were never able to get anybody to switch brands, no amount of advertisement will get people to stop smoking.    There is nobody in this world who is dumb enough to not realize that smoking will kill you so I don't feel all that bad for anybody who meets their faith from it.  

The problem is the most effective way of stopping smoking has been two folds and they both reek of a nanny-state

One is by demonizing it in a public forum like not allowing people to smoke in bars, offices, restaurants and parks which I think has done wonders for the way my clothes smell after going to TGI Fridays.  The other way  is by taxing the piss out of it so you hit people where it hurts.   I was in Korea not too long ago and everybody smokes; I was wondering why this happened and even-though the cultures are different the biggest reason is because a pack of smokes costs $2 there so it's still cheap.

But when it comes to any of these nanny-state solutions I get nervous, see I'm not really for infringing on people's rights, if you want to drop a bowling ball onto your unit let that be your prerogative but I'm also not for having anybody pay for your stupidity.   The issue I have with personal freedom is that it goes two ways; your freedom to smoke impedes on my freedom to not want to second-hand smoke just like your right to carry a gun shouldn't impede my freedom of not wanting to be shot by your gun. 

So we're in a conundrum, I don't take away your rights but don't want to have mine infringed upon by your action.  But it's not an isolated case, see just like you aren't allowed to take a leak on the street or in a public park maybe it's time to say that people also can't pollute the street or park with smoke.    You can take a leak in designated filthy smelling porta-johns so maybe we should set up porta-smokes where people pay money to smoke in the comfort of a urine drenched shit-box.

by the way is there anybody else who is freaked out by the fact that the three warning labels the FDA has released so far look like they feature

1- the kid from the cover of the Biggie Smalls album

2- Barack Obama

3- A dead Christopher Reeves