iQuit, and other charming stories

February 6, 2006 8:16 AM

iQuit [embedded flash movie]. Smoke Screen 2 is a Health Canada funded project that gives young Canadian immigrants and refugees the chance to make their own health awareness videos, since they're often marginalised by mainstream media. Rather than just being a fun little anti-smoking project though, the resulting videos are being shown on national primetime TV. Last year's project, Smoke Screen: Made By Girls, caused controversy when one of the videos was banned by the CBC.
posted by nylon (11 comments total)

The banned Agent Tobacco video is here. Not as artful as iQuit -- it feels a bit like South Park gone earnest -- but I don't see anything bannable about it. I can't beleive the CBC thought they might get sued over it. If the ad is still at a site carrying the imprint and implicit approval of Health Canada, why aren't the tobacco companies bitching to them?

Anyway, are any of these anti-smoking ads produced by kids and other target groups effective?
posted by rosemere at 9:56 AM on February 6, 2006

I'd watch these, but I'm gonna take a smoke break instead.
posted by zerolives at 10:24 AM on February 6, 2006

Rosemere> Not really, no. The Canadian provincial governments tend to use cigarette taxes to raise revenue while reducing consumption - all the advertisements and whatnot are merely feel-good junkWhen they introduced the pictures on packs, frex, everyone I know (and myself, once I started smoking) began collecting the pictures.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 10:28 AM on February 6, 2006

About the banned ad:

The spot closes with Reid's voice saying: "Agent Tobacco is targeting you. Don't get hit."

"The ad says that the tobacco companies are targeting young girls," Soles said. "According to our policy, that is not true, because they are legally not allowed to do that."

LOL. If it's illegal, then they can't be doing it!
posted by delmoi at 11:24 AM on February 6, 2006

Actually, I tried smoking a cigarette for the first time a couple of days ago. I only had about two or three puffs, and I guess the effect hit me pretty quickly, and dissipated.

Anyway, I don't get why these are so enticing. Two seconds of pleasure vs. having your clothes stink for days, and the stuff is so nasty too, not at all like smoking pot. Smokeable drugs ought to be regulated on the basis of how bad they make your clothes smell after you get back from a bar.
posted by delmoi at 11:28 AM on February 6, 2006

It's an acquired taste, like beer. As a first time smoker, you probably weren't inhaling very deeply either, which is how you really get the nicotine buzz.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 11:35 AM on February 6, 2006

LOL. If it's illegal, then they can't be doing it!
posted by delmoi

That's exactly the same place where my head asplode.

Just... wow.
posted by C.Batt at 11:59 AM on February 6, 2006

I wonder whether that logic would work in a murder trial:
- I can't have killed her, your honour! Murder's illegal.

Or even a speeding fine:
- You were driving at 159mph, sir
- Your radar must be broken. The speed limit is 70.
posted by nylon at 3:55 PM on February 6, 2006

Why is the Canadian or any other government spending so much money attacking something that gives it millions in tax revenue, and saves millions in Nursing home bills by killing people before they can retire? Smoking generates money, saves money and greatly reduces the risks of Alzheimers (via death from stroke, MI, cancer etc.)
posted by Megafly at 4:31 PM on February 6, 2006

Smoking generates money, saves money and greatly reduces the risks of Alzheimers (via death from stroke, MI, cancer etc.)
OK I'll bite. Because we have national healthcare, we pay for the sick and dying too. But you weren't really looking for an answer were you?
posted by Popular Ethics at 6:17 PM on February 6, 2006

Pop> The vast majority of healthcare expenditures are palliative and gerontological care. By dying earlier and of diseases that kill them faster (and thus saving the system the cost of paying for another twenty years of ill health), while also contributing more money than the average user, smokers are a net benefit to the healthcare system.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 7:22 PM on February 6, 2006