smoking

Sometimes I really wonder what people are thinking when they read news that run under catchy headlines like "gruesome warnings put Singaporeans off their cigarettes". Do they really think we've made some progress in understanding the human psyche?

Images of diseased gums and cancerous lungs along with anti-smoking warnings on cigarette packages have had an effect on smokers in Singapore, a survey said yesterday.

Twenty-eight percent of the 650 smokers queried said they smoked fewer cigarettes and seven in 10 said they knew more about the effects of smoking on health, according to the Health Promotion Board findings.

(...)The warnings, introduced in August 2004, carry six images: Diseased gums, a cancerous lung, a dying baby, a brain oozing blood, a patient on his deathbed and a family suffering from second-hand smoke.

(...) The average number of callers to the board's Quitline increased from 100 prior to the warnings and images to 300 a month since they were introduced.

(...) Singapore has an international reputation for social engineering, and keeps a close check on an array of public activities.

I applaud the Singapore's administration for daring actually protect their citizens' health, but really, the "findings" have found nothing new: since the 1960s, the consumers' behaviour has been known to be easily influenceable through subliminal and not so subliminal messages, also known as advertising.

What Singapore is doing with its provocative pictures on cigarettes packages is manipulating the consumers in exactly the opposite direction but using the same techniques as the highly influential advertising industry.