{"id":748,"date":"2012-08-11T06:03:38","date_gmt":"2012-08-11T06:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teekhapan.wordpress.com\/?p=748"},"modified":"2012-08-11T06:03:38","modified_gmt":"2012-08-11T06:03:38","slug":"why-warnings-against-smoking-could-be-injurious-to-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/2012\/08\/11\/why-warnings-against-smoking-could-be-injurious-to-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Why warnings against smoking could be injurious to health"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nVivek Kaul
\n<\/strong>
\nFirst it was Naseeruddin Shah. Then came Rahul Bose. He was followed by Irrfan. And now the baton for the thinking woman\u2019s sex symbol seems to have been passed onto Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Siddiqui in his tour de force performance as Faizal Khan (pronounced Faijal) in Gangs of Wasseypur II<\/em> has firmly made himself an actor to watch out for.
\nHis character is shown to be constantly smoking cigarettes or ganja throughout the movie. In a doped state he promises his mother \u201cbaap ka, dada ka, sabka badla lega tera Faijal<\/em>\u201d. He even tries to impress his girl friend ala Rajinikanth by trying to flip a cigarette first unsuccessfully and then successfully, into his mouth. Given this, the movie does begin with the usual disclaimer \u201cCigarette smoking is injurious to health. It causes cancer.\u201d The disclaimer appears even after the movie starts again after the interval.
\n The information and broadcasting ministry now has planned to tighten the screws further on movies which show characters smoking. In a circular dated August 2, 2012, the ministry has made it mandatory for films that have smoking scenes to shoot a 20 second disclaimer. This disclaimer is to be shot with the actor who is shown to be smoking in the movie. It has to be repeated when the movie re-starts after the interval, like the current disclaimer is. Over and above that a message saying \u201ccigarette smoking is injurious to health\u201d has to be flashed during the entire duration of a smoking scene. (You can read the complete report here).
\nThe move is in line with the government policy to discourage smoking. In line with this policy, every packet of cigarette now carries gruesome pictures showing the negative effects of smoking. These graphic images show various ways in which people are affected by smoking. These could be lung tumours, gangrenous feet and toes, throat cancers and so on.
\nOn the face of it these moves seem to make sense given that one third of adult males around the world smoke. Nicotine addiction is one of the biggest killers of human beings around the world.
\nBut the question that crops up here is that do these warnings really work?
\nFirst and foremost the disclaimers in place or those that are being put in place work with the assumption that people who smoke \u201ccigarettes\u201d do not understand the risk of smoking. Is that true?
\nIn his bestselling book The Tipping Point<\/em> Malcolm Gladwell talks about a study carried out by Harvard University which asked smokers to guess how many years of their life smoking would take, if they started smoking at the age of 21. The average response of the smokers was nine years, higher than the actual six or seven years that it would cost them. So the notion that smokers smoke because they do not understand the risks of smoking is at best juvenile.
\nBut what about a country like India where half the population is functionally illiterate? Do those who smoke cigarettes understand the risk of smoking them?
\nIf we look at the definition of poverty in this country, those spending less than or equal to Rs 28.65 per day in cities or Rs 22.42 in rural areas, are deemed to be poor. Now these are not the people who would be smoking cigarettes which can cost anywhere from Rs 2-5 per stick. They simply cannot afford it. They smoke bidis.
\nSo chances are the average Indian who smokes cigarettes earns reasonably well and is educated enough to understand the risks of smoking. But he still smokes.
\nIf the government really wants to discourage smoking and reduce the ill effects of tobacco consumption in this country, they should be concentrating on bidis, gutkas and pan masalas rather than cigarettes.
\nThat\u2019s one part of the argument. People who smoke understand its risk and continue to smoke. The other part that needs to be discussed is that do pictorial warnings and disclaimers of various kinds work? Do they discourage people from smoking?
\nA recent research seems to suggest the opposite i.e. the warnings seem to encourage people to smoke more. Brand Guru Martin Lindstrom carried out a functional magnetic resonance imaging tests on the brains of smokers a few years back. He showed them what he felt was one of the most effective anti-smoking ads he had ever seen.
\n\u201cA group of people are sitting around and chatting and smoking. They\u2019re having a jolly good time, except for one problem: instead of smoke, thick, greenish-yellow globules of fat are pouring out of the tips of their cigarettes, congealing, coalescing and splattering onto their ashtrays. The more the smokers talk and gesture, the more those caterpillar-sized wads of fats end up on the table, the floor, their shirtsleeves, all over the place. The point being, of course, that smoking spreads these same globules of fat throughout your bloodstream, clogging up your arteries and wreaking havoc with your health,\u201d writes Lindstrom in his book Buyology \u2013 How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy is Wrong<\/em>.
\nWhen this advertisement was shown to smokers who took part in this experiment they weren\u2019t put off by the gruesome images of fat. As Lindstrom writes \u201cThey weren\u2019t put off by the gruesome images of artery-clogging fart; they barely even noticed them.\u201d
\nBut what the message did instead was that it activated the \u201ccraving spot\u201d in the brain. \u201cCigarette warnings…stimulated an area of the smokers\u2019 brains called the nucleus accumbens, otherwise known as \u201cthe craving spot.\u201d. The region is a chain-link of specialized neurons that lights up when the body desires something \u2013 whether it\u2019s alcohol, drugs, tobacco, sex, or gambling. When stimulated, the nucleus accumbens requires higher and higher doses to get its fix,\u201d points out Lindstrom. So the gruesome advertisement made people want to smoke more instead of less. This was an unintended consequence.
\n\u201cCamel smokers experienced more cravings when they saw illustrations of Camels and Camel logos, and Marlboro smokers experienced more cravings when they saw illustrations of the iconic Marlboro Man,\u201d writes Lindstrom in his new book Brandwashed \u2013 Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy<\/em>.
\nAnother move that has been resorted to is the blurring out of smoking images when the trailers and songs of new movies are played on television. The song Chikni Chameli<\/em> from Agneepath has some side dancers smoking bidis. This visual has been blurred out on television. In the trailers of Gangs of Wasseypur II <\/em>the chillum being smoked by Faizal Khan has been blurred out. What is the point of doing this? I guess the only people who do not understand that the character is smoking a bidi or a chillum are the babus at the ministry of information and broadcasting. In fact the blurring may even attract adolescents and children and they might try to figure out what exactly is being blurred. Ironically scenes in older movies where characters are shown drinking and smoking continue to be broadcast as it is.
\nAlso this does bring us back to the fundamental point whether cinema is a reflection of the world that we live in? The world that we live in allows smoking. It is not an illegal activity. But rape is illegal. And movies are allowed to show rape scenes. Actor Shakti Kapoor made a career out of raping film heroines on screen. So if rape scenes are allowed on screen what is the problem with smoking?
\n(The article originally appeared on www.firstpost.com on August 11,2012. http:\/\/www.firstpost.com\/living\/why-warnings-against-smoking-could-be-injurious-to-health-414602.html\/2<\/a>)
\n(Vivek Kaul is a writer who can be reached at vivek.kaul@gmail.com. He does not smoke)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vivek Kaul First it was Naseeruddin Shah. Then came Rahul Bose. He was followed by Irrfan. And now the baton for the thinking woman\u2019s sex symbol seems to have been passed onto Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Siddiqui in his tour de force performance as Faizal Khan (pronounced Faijal) in Gangs of Wasseypur II has firmly made himself … <\/p>\n

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