Smoke Signals

There is a "Quit Smoking" television campaign. You may have had the pleasure of catching their commercials.

We have been treated to watching smokers die, slowly and with family remembrances, and a man who had his voice box removed and speaks through a device in his trachea.

In the current batch of ads, we have a surgeon sawing off people's parts because they smoke.

We are blessed to see a leg and foot, sans a toe or two, the others blackened. We are told that the foot belongs to a smoker and that this mess of a foot has evidence of gangrene.

Then the surgeon draws on the leg of the patient to indicate where he's going to hack it off.

In another commercial the same surgeon (very talented guy) pulls a big glob of fat out of a smoker's vein. Or maybe it's her carotid artery. In any case, it's disgusting. We are then treated to several seconds of him prodding said fat.

I think by this time we are all aware that smoking is harmful to your health. Doesn't the Surgeon General even say so on all those cigarette packs?

It's not like when I was a kid and everybody smoked. You could smoke in hospitals or on the bus. Hell, the bus driver would hold your cigarette while you looked for change.

Kids had candy cigarettes. Real cigarettes cost thirty cents a pack. You couldn't afford not to smoke!

I digress.

I cannot imagine what nauseating visuals the next round of anti-smoking commercials may bring.

No doubt it will have you running for the liquor cabinet.

But that's another campaign.