I was reminded of the “Thank You for Smoking” movie (which is pretty funny) when I read about a new study on the “anti-smoking” advertising. The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, concluded that ads done by tobacco companies aimed at discouraging kids from smoking were not effective. What’s more, teenagers were more likely to smoke if they saw ads encouraging parents to discourage their kids from smoking. A New York Times editorial notes that the study’s conclusions are in line with District Judge Gladys Kessler of the District of Columbia, who concluded that the anti-smoking programs were not about preventing smoking but about heading off a government crackdown.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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27 Comments
Really sneaky are the ads that tobacco runs that go like this: “Kids, smoking is for adults. Until you’re an adult, you can’t smoke.”
What kids want of course to look more adult . . . so the ad actually encourages smoking.
It’s like telling high school kids not to do drugs because they’re so exciting and pleasurable that they are addictive.
Yeah, that’ll stop ‘em.
What they should tell them is that drugs are BORING and they make the user boring, which is true by the way.
Add to that, Capn, the general desire of teenagers to be independent of their parents and the ads pitched to the parents to tell their kids not to smoke.
Of course the tobacco are well aware of the fact kids are going to go against whatever their parents say or think. They know who spends the dollar.
If they want an effective ad campaign, show people with emphasima, show the insides of cancer stricken lungs. With the shows on tv now, that ain’t gross in that respect, but it may just start testosterone laden brain cells thinking.
They need to show YOUNG people who are negatively affected by smoking. I think the one that hit me most powerfully was a 26 year old with lung cancer. It really doesn’t seem so dangerous when the 70 year old is hacking and wheezing, that’s when most kids expect you to die anyway.
Another thing that doesn’t work, ads designed to guilt parents.
But…but…but…
If they have the “smoking gene”…
Why waste the advertising time/$? It’s not the kid’s fault, it’s the “force”!
Hollywood and TV has done better at showing what the real effects of smoking does to a person’s lifestyle such as trying to run and catch a bus or going up flights of stairs.Marketing Ads companies are contractual to the biddings of the companies paying for their services, but Hollywood is not bounded by those same rules and has been used to promote counterpoints to those ads.More government intervention in marketing ads and realistic negative images of smoking is needed to discourage the young.Kudos for the District Judge Gladys Kessler for recognizing the tobacco companies still trying to deceived the public.
KSGolfBalls:
If you have nothing to offer, you are deficit spending by posting here.
California has some ads playing on the connection of smoking with impotence. They show the cigarette ‘drooping’ like something else does. Another good one I have seen shows a bunch of tobacco executives laughing about how they hook the kids – makes the rebelliousness to be to defy the old white men who run the companies.
But why should we care; after all, there is no conclusive ‘proof’ that tobacco is not good for you. That is what the execs swore to in front of Congress; they wouldn’t lie to us would they?
C’mon Postal, don’t you know? There’s a smoking “gene” that makes you smoke.
Ask PeeMom.
Postal, thanks for noticing that’s really all Goofytesticles does is bash, he never adds anything legitimate to the converstation.
Think of how incredibly sad that is. At least we all love the discussion, the passion behind the ideals. He spends his free time mocking us.
PM-I think you just defined goofnut as an “empty suit”.Upon reflection, it sounds about right! Sold!!
MOCKING???
You’re blaming your habit on a gene. Who’s mocking medicine?
You’re simply amazing. Would you blame someone with, say, Down’s Syndrome, for being slow? Who are YOU to say what role genes play in our behavior? YOU would be the one mocking medicine.
From what I’ve read there are very valid genetic reasons for the things people do, from over-eating to diabetes, to anger management to attention deficits.
I think in the future, therapies related to turning on and off genes is going to be HUGE in medicine. And the major scientists agree with me.
http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/AB/IE/Intro_The_Human_Genome.html
“The goal of the Human Genome Project is to provide scientists with powerful new tools to help them clear the research hurdles that now keep them from understanding the molecular essence of other tragic and devastating illnesses, such as schizophrenia, alcoholism, Alzheimer’s disease, and manic depression.”
Note, once again, backed my message up with FACT.
Animal studies have shown nicotine to be an addictive drug in and of itself. This separate from the individual predisposition toward addictive behavior.
Of course, as we all know, there is no ‘conclusive proof’ that tobacco is not good for your health! (At least, according to the sworn testiminy of the execs)
PeeMom,Honey, I’m married to someone involved in first-hand research in the Human Genome project. I’m fairly well-exposed to the data.
However…
To compare the genetics of Downs Syndrome to those of a smoker…is…
just plain dumb.
IF that is true, which I somehow doubt that it is…just like how you WORKED for someone and now suddenly own your own business…then YOU of all people should have known better.
Yeah, I read your post to my wife. She got a good laugh. She said “that woman is making up excuses for her inability to drop a disgusting habit.”
“Many addicts use that kind of not-my-fault approach to avoid taking responsibility for their actions”
(Yeah, she’s a PhD.)
And I’ve owned my own business for 3 years, Pee. And it has grown nicely to the point that I can quit the other job anytime. But, I enjoy that job, and I feel a tremendous sense of loyalty to the company. So, when the time is right…
Then I read the “Downs Syndrome” parallel you tried to draw. Her response: “She’s just dumb”
How perfectly apropos.
Please testicles, have her respond with her theory on genes and tobacco and nicotine.
Ya know, something that sounds a little more PhDish than ’she’s just dumb’.
“She’s just dumb” fits perfectly.
Hey pol mom.
You are gonna have to email me some info on this clown golfnuts backchannel. I’ll get with you on that.
I think I found me a new favorite toy mouse.
LRB, Paul Rosell,
Yeah Golfnuts will make a nice addition.
Ya know what I notice goofball? You have no ideas of your own. All you do is attack good posters, cheerlead for bad ones, and tell us what your wife says.
This speaks of a poster of limited mind and depth.
The thread?
The government has subsidized and enabled the tobacco companies for years.
During World War 1 they addicted a whole generation by shipping free cigarettes to the troops.
It is about time that the government or through the government force the tobacco companies subsidize treatment for tobacco addiction.
They need to show YOUNG people who are negatively affected by smoking. I think the one that hit me most powerfully was a 26 year old with lung cancer. It really doesn’t seem so dangerous when the 70 year old is hacking and wheezing, that’s when most kids expect you to die anyway.Posted by: political_mom | November 27, 2006 at 04:50 PM
I agree with that. What kind of message does an older person dying from years of smoking do someone when they see young people doing in on TV and movies that are “cool”?I am in favor of the “sin” taxes however that go along with. Just use the money for something more useful than these ads.
I’d like to see that ’sin tax’ go to something to help people quit. If you notice, the Kansas Health Foundation doesn’t really DO anything to help people quit like provide meds or therapies or nicotine replacement. WHY? Because it’d cut off their funding if people REALLY stopped smoking.
And that’s ok goofytesticles, I called your bluff, and you didn’t have a hand.
Sux to be you.
JR I can hardly use my email right now because of those DAMN animated ads. Locks up my ancient computer.
I’d like to see that ’sin tax’ go to something to help people quit. If you notice, the Kansas Health Foundation doesn’t really DO anything to help people quit like provide meds or therapies or nicotine replacement. WHY? Because it’d cut off their funding if people REALLY stopped smoking.Posted by: political_mom | November 27, 2006 at 11:12 PM
Check this out for corruption of the tobocco tax dollars.http://www.bakersfield.com/135/story/84969.html
Kia can you post the article, I am not signing onto a new site.
Here you go.
Sen. Florez, Supervisor Rubio respond to fmr. First 5 Kern researcher Dr. Nyberg’s comments
VideoPosted 11/2/06BAKERSFIELD – The fallout continued Thursday over questions of how First 5 Kern spent tens of millions of dollars.Shafter Sen. Dean Florez and Supervisor Michael Rubio held a news conference Thursday to respond to an attack related to the fallout. See the entire letter below from the organization’s former researcher Dr. Kenneth Nyberg to First 5 Kern’s chairman Dr. B. A. Jinadu.
First 5 Kern is a cigarette tax-funded program designed to help children in their first five years of life.
The organization is now being questioned about how they spend money.
In a letter written to the chairman of First 5, former First 5 Kern researcher Dr. Kenneth Nyberg called the leaders, “A bullying and banal state senator and a sycophant supervisor.”
“First and foremost, I think it’s as flawed as his research,” said Florez. “That makes me question the research that was actually done.”
At a meeting Wednesday night, First 5 Kern Commissioners decided to investigate the organization’s spending.
The First 5 Kern Commission talked about the still-incomplete study during a three-hour meeting Wednesday night and agreed to an independent performance audit.
First 5 Kern funds programs designed to improve the lives of children through age five.
John and Pepper Tolan said their adopted four-and-a-half-year-old daughter Tina would never have survived her severe health problems at birth without help from programs funded by First 5 Kern.
“What brought her to this point is the initial help we got when she was super little, or very young,” the Tolans said.
But an investigation by the Californian determined that research to evaluate the effectiveness of those programs at a cost of several million dollars, has not been completed, even after five years of study and the date from that study may be seriously flawed.
There’s questionable spending, and questions of oversight.
The paper said First 5 paid $12,000 on Moro Bay retreats for researchers, $2,000 to ship a computer to a contractor in New York, and $17,000 in car lease payments to CSUB researcher Nyberg.
First 5 Kern Commission Chariman Dr. B.A. Jinadu said, “We don’t have anything to hide.”
“We don’t even want to investigate ourselves,” Jinadu said. “We want somebody else who in independent who has nothing to do with us to investigate it.”
Commissioner Jeff Green said he supported the decision to have the Board of Supervisors fund the performance audit.
“It’s my opinion that our commission should not be ex-spending more of its funds on lawyers and consultants and investigators and audits,” Green said.
Agency Executive Direct Steve Ladd refused again to comment on camera, but said off-camera, he too supports the investigation and wants it done promptly. At one point during the meeting, the discussion focused on Ladd’s employment. But County Counsel said a public meeting was not an appropriate place for such a topic.
County Counsel will also get an estimate of the cost of the audit.
If the counsel finds an auditor before the commission’s next meeting, a special meeting could be called.
Dr. B. A. Jinadu Chair First 5 Kern Commission
Dear Dr. Jinadu,
I have read the article in the Bakersfield Californian (October 29, 2006), and feel I must respond to the grotesque mischaracterizations contained therein. I am asking you to share this statement with the First 5 Commission and others you feel appropriate. Over the next several days I will send this to others, but felt you and the Commission should hear first from me. I am not sending a letter to the Bakersfield Californian in part because, as Mark Twain admonished, you can’t win a war of words with someone who buys ink by the barrel, but mostly because the rampant bias of the newspaper would surely preclude them from printing the full text of my response. As a caveat, I need to state that I am no longer associated with the Applied Research Center having retired in June of this year. Indeed, that simple fact was also misreported by Ms. Wenner and the newspaper.
At the outset, let me lay bare the essential truth of the Californian’s diatribe. It carries forth, once again, a vicious agenda of retribution initiated by a bullying and banal State Senator, and furthered by his sycophant Supervisor, and their hand picked self promoting lapdog on the First 5 Commission. This cabal would be newsworthy in itself, but in this instance the Bakersfield Californian is eagerly neck deep in this conspiratorial sewage with them. As such, the newspaper consistently misrepresents, knowingly states wrongly, or simply ignores evidence that contradicts the bias they are so intensely pursuing. It is a shameful disregard for even the loosest of journalistic ethics, and solely done to further the political ambitions and spiteful retributions of those aforementioned.
Let me provide some specifics.
The “Fully Upholstered” Sofa
The California decries the purchase of “a couch and two bookcases for Nyberg’s office”, describing it as a “pewter colored ‘fully upholstered’ sofa”. In truth, you could not stand such a piece of furniture upright in my smallish office, which was furnished with 20 ‚Äì 30 year old University hand-me-downs. A couch, two bookcases, a small conference table and four chairs (partially upholstered) were purchased for the ARC conference room, and used extensively for First 5 related meetings. Ms Wenner, the author of the newspaper article, knew this was not in my office, as she had visited both rooms. She knowingly misrepresented the facts of the case because the truth did not serve her, or her editor’s, bias.
Car Lease
With the responsibilities of administering evaluation efforts in the six counties of the Central Valley Evaluation Partnership (CVEP), I was logging over 40,000 automobile miles a year. This extensive travel was chewing up my two older cars, and costing a great deal in mileage reimbursement. Mr. Ladd offered to support a leased car, if I would forego mileage reimbursement. So I personally leased a car, and the lease payments were reimbursed by First 5, but no longer any mileage reimbursement. After two years, I had exhausted the mileage allowance stipulated in the lease of the first car (100,000 miles) doing work on First 5, and turned it in on another leased car. After the CVEP dissolved and my travel responsibilities reduced, Mr. Ladd asked that I return to mileage reimbursement. A full reporting and honest audit of the facts would clearly show that First 5 Kern saved well over $20,000 in legitimate travel expenses through Mr. Ladd’s efforts, and might even show that I am still stuck with a leased car I no longer need, and that these arrangements actually cost me a great deal of money. Again, Ms. Wenner and the Californian have all these records, but they blatantly chose to misrepresent them.
Retreats
We held numerous retreats at a variety of locations, including the Inn at Morro Bay, Stallion Springs above Tehachapi, Hodels in Bakersfield, and my personal favorite, Narducci’s Caf?© in Old Town Kern. They were all necessary, and very productive. The location was principally determined by the number of participants, the tasks before us, and who would be attending, as well as their availability. Retreats are a common business practice of corporations and public agencies, and a full and honest reporting of all of our retreats would clearly show they were fully appropriate and useful.
Annual Reports of Findings
The insinuation that First 5 Kern has not received a thorough analysis of its funded efforts is blatantly preposterous. During my tenure, we met every contractual obligation on time and under budget, and completed scores of additional analyses also on time and without any further budget allocations. Most importantly, the work itself was rigorous, thorough and comprehensive, and found to be of much value to First 5 Kern and others, including the State Commission. We fully reported on our efforts and their meanings in an Annual Report of Findings published yearly on our and First 5 Kern’s website. The public is encouraged to read these reports and draw their own conclusions as to the thoroughness and usefulness of our evaluation. The Californian has never reported any of these findings.
The evaluation work we performed is among the very most exhaustive of any for First 5 Commissions throughout the State. There are 58 First 5 Commissions, and I would eagerly invite anyone to compare the research we performed for First 5 Kern with that of all other 57 First 5 Commissions. We have longitudinal data on many persons electing various First 5 funded services, tracking data on children, and innumerable pre-post measures of change. We were able to describe, in detail, the results achieved by First 5 Kern funded programs, and to offer reasoned judgments as to their progress. Indeed, if I have any regret about the evaluation work, it is that the Commission did not heed more closely to our findings in making refunding decisions. Still, anyone who looks at the data for First 5 Kern’s funded programs of pediatric dental care, preschool education, immunization, and several other specific programs can not doubt that in these areas it is making substantial progress in improving the lives of children 0-5.
As I understand it, Commissioner Green arrived on the First 5 Commission, filling a seat that had been vacated. The previous Commissioner had been hired away by Senator Flores, and the Senator’s prodigy, Mr. Rubio, appointed Mr. Green. Since the very outset of his tenure, Mr. Green has been far more than a “squeaky wheel” requiring media grease, but rather a malignancy borne of political ambitions and retributions.
Mr. Green continues to snipe at First 5 Kern, its leadership and our evaluation, carrying forth a corrupt political agenda, and he has exhausted my goodwill. My father and mother, and others of their generation, taught me to not shy from the bullying efforts of others, but to shine a light on them and call them out. And so, Mr. Green, I would welcome an opportunity to debate the merits of our research with you at any fully public venue. I am available almost every Tuesday and Thursday, from mid-January to mid-March. As preparation for such a discussion, you might want to actually read the Annual Reports of Findings, and compare our efforts with those of the other 57 First 5 Commissions. You might also want to reflect on the number of Grimway Farm employees and contractees who need First 5 funded services because your company provides neither sufficient benefits nor a living wage.
I deeply regret that the Bakersfield Californian’s slander has necessitated my response, not just for me and my family, but because it wholly obscures the honest and often productive efforts of First 5 Kern. It also denigrates the leadership of Mr. Ladd, who I found to be tough, fair and passionately committed to the success of First 5 Kern. And it minimizes the heartfelt and conscientious efforts of Dr. Jinadu and the other members of the Commission, and the programs and initiatives funded by First 5 Kern.
The Bakersfield Californian implies that I had ungainly profited from directing the evaluation of First 5 Kern, and Mr. Green continues to imply that the evaluation we performed was of no merit. Both of these are bald lies that I can not tolerate, nor should others. As to accountability issues, I will note that First 5 Kern, the CSUB Foundation, and California State University, Bakersfield are routinely subjected to independent audits and to my knowledge no audit has ever produced a negative finding on the quality of our work or legitimacy of our expenses.
Respectfully,
Kenneth L. Nyberg, Ph.D.