New Quit Smoking advert from Australia

[JasonMckerra]

Australia's Quit smoking videos can be pretty graphic. Usually they show a different gruesome way that smoking will kill you, and then say "call the quit line".

This one is a bit different, it's a montage of well known Australian anti-smoking adverts, put to Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows".

I quite like the message, instead of ramming the "only right choice" down your throat, it appears to say, "You know what smoking will do, are you going to take responsibility". There seems to be a subtle change in emphasis.

It also seems to address another objection to quitting smoking, this generation were not tricked by evil tobacco companies, you will never get massive payouts, because "everybody knows":

http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/yt-kzoagsjlUv4/everybody_knows_smoking_kills.swf

[sara lou]

I have to agree that it is a very effective message so long as you can get people to actually watch it. As a Cohen fan and a smoker, I tend to close my eyes and just listen to the music. Yep just like an ostrich, head in the sand and arse on display.

[Gottingen]

The simple fact is, people like to smoke.

[JasonMckerra]

Really? I know a lot of smokers who would disagree, they would say they smoke because of the addictive powers of nicotine, rather than because they like it.

If people aren't sufficiently warned of the danger and the addictive properties, are they really making a free choice when they start smoking?

[Gottingen]

I don't buy a moment of it.  Addiction is an excuse not to stop.  Enough normal people stop smoking that the addiction excuse holds no weight with me.

I don't see how you could possibly warn someone enough, but I'm all for an informed consumer, so go ahead and try.

[Omneix Micrasius]

Every time you drive a car, fly an airplane, or even step outside during an electrical storm, you are taking a chance with your life.  In light of these things, I suppose smoking is just another chance one can choose to take.  However the odds of death from a cigarette are certainly worse than those things, and death by cigarette is typically much slower, if not more painful.  The image of my grandfather bedridden and suffering from emphysema after decades of smoking is why I do not smoke.

[JasonMckerra]

I choose not to smoke as well. I encourage everyone I know to quit smoking. I really wish people didn't smoke, that said, I would utterly oppose any ban on smoking.