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How to get 7th graders to smoke

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Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#101

Post by arp242 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #68
kenjackson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they are usually addictive. Almost every person I know who smokes says they derive little pleasure they once did, but are addicted to nicotine and can’t stop. And as a non-smoker, it doesn’t look fun, but I trust it was at one point in their life - I guess.

Right, I was a smoker for many years, the but the actual conversion rate of "drug users" to "drug addicts" is surprisingly low. The overwhelming majority of people who smoke their first cigarette will not die a smoking related death. And cigarettes are probably the most extreme example. How many people who try cocaine end up being the poster case for DARE? It's virtually no one. The risk analysis for having fun with…

I wish you could just buy single cigarettes rather than always getting a pack. I feel that's a big part of the problem right there.

It would be like only being able to buy wine in boxes of 20, or beers in crates of 30. Once you have it, you're much more likely to use it. I just want a beer or a bottle of wine this Friday evening, and maybe after that I want a cigarette. And that's it.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#102

Post by pwg »

toxik wrote: post #30
mrob wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been tried before. In Waterworld, the bad guys are literally called the "Smokers" and smoking is a big part of their culture. It's so over the top it seems more like a parody of anti-smoking campaigns. I doubt it ever convinced anybody not to smoke, and I think any similar attempt is doomed to fail in the same way. Kids are good at detecting when you're trying to manipulate them, and it doesn't matter if you…

Kids want to do what they see, if they see people smoke, they want to smoke. If mommy and daddy drink coffee in the morning, it doesn't matter that it tastes like ass, a literal 3-year-old will just by sheer force of will drink that bitter nectar just to feel like they belong.

> If mommy and daddy drink coffee in the morning, it doesn't matter that it tastes like ass, a literal 3-year-old will just by sheer force of will drink that bitter nectar just to feel like they belong

Then I must be quite different from that "literal 3 year old". Mom and Dad both drank coffee, and around the 3-year point I did want to try it, for the reason you say, because it was something "they" were doing. And, yes, that sip did taste like ass. So much like ass that to this day 54 years later, I do not and will not drink coffee.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#103

Post by gumby »

I remember when the cigarette companies used to hire people to stand on street corners and just give them away (little three-cigarette packs) to encourage people to start or switch brands. Teenagers never have money so this was a great way to get them.

I didn't smoke but I used to accept them and then give them to my smoker friends.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#104

Post by astura »

RhysU wrote: post #81
nobleach wrote: post #5

Show them a Quentin Tarantino film? ...or any film for that matter where the main characters seem so "cool, unfazed and untouchable". To a young (mostly male) mind, that's the ultimate goal; to be in charge. For most beginning smokers, it's not about the inhalation of tobacco, but the subversive "screw the rules, those don't apply to me" façade. This might sound obvious but, if we want 7th graders not to glorify smok…

Smoking by most teenagers is easy to solve: Make all cigarettes hot pink with garish other colors in ugly, ugly patterns. Teenagers don't like looking conspicuously ridiculous.

Vaping already looks conspicuously ridiculous. Nobody ever looked cool vaping.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#105

Post by rdtsc »

emchammer wrote: post #48
mrob wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been tried before. In Waterworld, the bad guys are literally called the "Smokers" and smoking is a big part of their culture. It's so over the top it seems more like a parody of anti-smoking campaigns. I doubt it ever convinced anybody not to smoke, and I think any similar attempt is doomed to fail in the same way. Kids are good at detecting when you're trying to manipulate them, and it doesn't matter if you…

I thought it referred to the smoke from their engines? They were the only ones in that world who used internal combustion engines?

It's kind of both. For some strange reason I watched that movie again recently. I guess they were supposed to be the distilled version of whatever was considered bad in society in the 90s: hyper-masculinity, smoking, oil tankers, guns, religion (they went on "crusades", the leader was "The Deacon") etc.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#106

Post by madaxe_again »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #9

The main reason that it's hard to change people is that they resist manipulation. This is hard to see if you only consider well-meaning attempts to change people, which you might not consider manipulation because that word has a negative connotation.

Absolutely this. You cannot get a person to change an opinion, a belief, a tendency, by tackling it head on. It’s almost like we have an autonomous immune response to information which challenges our preconceptions or preferences.

I have found, repeatedly, that the way to get people to change is to make them think it was their idea. So you manipulate them, but in such a fashion that they do not realise they are being manipulated. For instance, I got my kid sister to quit smoking by taking up smoking and encouraging her to smoke more and more until she smelt like an ashtray and had a wallet as light as a feather - and then she decided that this was stupid, and quit. I then claimed to take inspiration from her and followed suit.

Of course, this doesn’t work en masse without essentially going into conspiratorial psyops on the population, but on an individual or small group basis, people can be given a set of precepts and ideas that lead them to an almost inevitable conclusion - and because it was their idea, it’s precious. You can then really cement it by trying to get them to drop the idea, and convince them that the thing that you wanted them to think is wrong.

Contrary creatures, we.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#107

Post by jjgreen »

nvahalik wrote: post #23
nobleach wrote: post #5

Show them a Quentin Tarantino film? ...or any film for that matter where the main characters seem so "cool, unfazed and untouchable". To a young (mostly male) mind, that's the ultimate goal; to be in charge. For most beginning smokers, it's not about the inhalation of tobacco, but the subversive "screw the rules, those don't apply to me" façade. This might sound obvious but, if we want 7th graders not to glorify smok…

Requiem for a dream still haunts me.

His worst film I thought, almost an Aronofsky pastiche.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#108

Post by evilsnoopi3 »

Retric wrote: post #78
vundercind wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realization that almost all illegal drugs (heroin, meth, a handful like that that feel too good —probably exceptions) aren’t really in some much worse category than alcohol and nicotine, and that some are surely less-bad, even, was quite a revelation. Must be a shared experience for a lot of the DARE generation.

I think people underestimate many illegal drugs because they don’t know long term users. Alcohol and Tobacco have minimal short term health risks. Most people throw up rather than OD on Alcohol. Obviously driving while fucked us is dangerous, but the same is true of a lot of drugs. Driving stoned is an underappreciated risk. LSD arguably the poster child for safe illegal drugs, but still physically risky due to peopl…

Literally only one of the drugs you mentioned can kill you due to withdrawal. Hint: it's not LSD or tobacco.

Alcohol is an _extremely_ harmful drug.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#109

Post by normaler »

Retric wrote: post #78
vundercind wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realization that almost all illegal drugs (heroin, meth, a handful like that that feel too good —probably exceptions) aren’t really in some much worse category than alcohol and nicotine, and that some are surely less-bad, even, was quite a revelation. Must be a shared experience for a lot of the DARE generation.

I think people underestimate many illegal drugs because they don’t know long term users. Alcohol and Tobacco have minimal short term health risks. Most people throw up rather than OD on Alcohol. Obviously driving while fucked us is dangerous, but the same is true of a lot of drugs. Driving stoned is an underappreciated risk. LSD arguably the poster child for safe illegal drugs, but still physically risky due to peopl…

Long term use aside, the amount of life changing (mostly in the bad sense) interactions I had while using alcohol are in a class in its own. Prison statistics reflect that especially in violent crime.
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