June 5, 2013 Article

The Old Coot is up in smoke.

By Merlin Lessler

It’s worse than the squawk that screeches from your TV every time a thunderstorm rolls through town. I didn’t think it possible! But, then the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) launched their latest round of anti smoking ads, a $54 million campaign to get smokers to quit. Now, I pray for the Weather Service squawk. To blast out the anti-smoking ads.

Every day, day after day, we’re treated to the images of “Terrie” putting in her teeth, donning a wig, tying a scarf to cover the hole in her throat and listening to her lecture us on the evils of smoking, in a raspy, artificial voice. And then there’s the guy who cough so hard he throws up. It’s unwatchable, not to mention: in poor taste, gross and disgusting.

Lectures don’t make smokers quit. Even a bunch of horrific and tasteless TV spots have little effect. All the ads accomplish, is to make us scramble for our remotes. It’s especially hard on us old coots. We get hurt, tripping and falling, trying to get to the mute button. To shut up Terrie and her smoking friends.

It’s the same technique the teachers in my elementary school used when some kid (not me) drew a picture of a witch on the board and wrote teacher under it. We were forced to sit at attention with our hands folded on our desks until the guilty party confessed. We all got punished because one kid (not me) pulled a fast one. I’m not sitting at attention at my desk but it sure feels like it when I’m forced to see and hear the graphic images that the CDC thinks will get smokers to quit.

45 million people in this country smoke. 254 million don’t, yet 254 million of us get punished for something we didn’t do. Smokers never see the ads anyhow; they’re out on the back porch having a cigarette! Even the CDC knows they have only a minor effect. “We think (hope) it might get 50,000 people to quit (1/10^th of one percent of the smokers), says Doctor Tim McAffee, Director of the CDC’s, Office on Smoking Health. 

So, here I am, back in Miss McCormick’s 5^th grade class, sitting at attention at my desk, waiting for the dismissal bell to ring, all because some kid (not me) won’t confess to putting a frog in the right hand top door of her desk. Only now, instead of sitting at my desk, I’m in a chair without a remote, forced to watch Terrie get ready for her day. Toothless, voiceless, frail, bald and with a hole in her neck. It almost makes me want to have a cigarette!