Up in Smoke …. ‘Dave’s not here, man!’

Posted on by Ark

Netflix recently imposed a ban on all new productions from featuring smoking, and a  warning on all material that features tobacco.

As I understand it,only where a case could be made on the grounds of artistic/historical reasons would a film/series featuring cigarettes be allowed to be aired.

All future films made by Netflix will omit smoking unless the writer and director can prove it is “essential to the creative vision” of the project.

A spokesman said: “Netflix strongly supports artistic expression. We also recognise that smoking is harmful and when portrayed positively on screen can adversely influence young people.

 

Yes, no? Good, bad?

What say you?

 

Ark.

172 thoughts on “Up in Smoke …. ‘Dave’s not here, man!’”

  1. I expect to be accused of whataboutism but if they are going to not air smoking, they shouldn’t have alcohol or scenes with gambling too as they too are harmful to health and societies. Maybe they will even ban cars in the future!

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          4. Interesting. However, it seems to be limited and doesn’t affect every marijuana smoker whereas addiction is part and parcel with cigarettes … unless you only try one or two and have really good willpower.

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      2. Yes. But subjectively. Why does that answer matter to you? I suspect it doesn’t… in any way because asking the question is the same bias as asking, “When did you stop hitting your wife?” You presume to judge which – if any – answers shall be given further consideration, and this is a position from which you presume properly belongs to you. It doesn’t because the answers are subjectively justified. You have no right but moralistic hubris to assume you do… in the same way I have no right to demand you justify to me your sexual preferences or preferred colour scheme.

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      3. One positive thing about smoking? Three—

        1. it keeps the smoker at arm’s length from me

        2, it tells us a lot about the sucker on the end of the ciggie

        3. And I’m positive it’s not good …

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      1. I remember flying and people smoking in the plane. That seems weird now. But I’m not anti-smoking at all if they’re courteous about it.

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        1. The problem with smoking is that, traditionally it has always been promoted as ”cool” and the deadly effects have always been downplayed.
          There really is nothing courteous about smoking, especially if one is the recipient of 2nd hand smoke.

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          2. That you are weird probably goes without saying.
            However, promotion of a product that is actively designed to be addictive is not really promoting any sort of life that is living life to the full.
            Remember the Stuyvesant adds?

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          4. Peter Stuyvesant are a brand of cigarette. The ads depicted young, healthy people frolicking in the sun, sea and sandy beaches etc.
            You get the picture , I’m sure?
            Just as Rothmans featured the insignia on the sleeve a airline pilot.
            Camel was the macho dude in the jungle gear.
            Odd you never saw an image of an old man carrying around bottled oxygen.

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          5. Well I don’t watch TV, so I may have missed something. I remember some of the old ads though glorifying smoking. Stuyvesants aren’t sold here, but we have had our Marlboro men, no doubt. I agree with you but I struggle with regulating everything under the sun.

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          6. Regulation is prevalent in all spheres. If there was no regulation China would already ”own” the world, CFCs would still be damaging the ozone and oil companies would say ”Screw you” and drive pipelines over vast tracts of natural wilderness.
            Food and drugs would not be subject to much testing, and in context …. there would be no age restriction in the sale of cigarettes.

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          7. Please don’t confuse regulation with banning. You can’t argue with reasons for the former and then presume they are sufficient to cover reasons for the latter.

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          8. Please don’t confuse regulation with banning.

            I’m not, and when the lockdown is lifted so will the current ban of selling cigarettes.

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  4. I grew up in an era when casual smoking was everywhere. I hated it. Every time I took a bus, or a plane, or ate at a restaurant, I’d spend the time choking and come home with my clothes and hair stinking of it. Ugh. And on TV and in the movies people were smoking all the time, as if it were something everyone just did. And there were cigarette ads everywhere.

    I much prefer the way it is now. No ads on TV, smokers have to go outside to a smoking area, and I can breathe. And I like Netflix’s approach – they haven’t banned it completely. If there’s a reason a character should be smoking, then they can show it. But no more just throwing it in for no reason.

    And this is only about Netflix’s in-house productions, so it doesn’t say they are limiting it in everything else they show. So I’m good with their decision.

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  5. That’s very good of them. I don’t know who or what ‘Netflix’ is/are but I trust they don’t show films containing violence, unless it’s of ‘artistic merit’, as whenever I see a violent film I have a strange desire to go out and kill someone!

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      1. They DO warn us about automobiles and their emissions. One reason why electric cars are being developed. Perhaps you may have heard of something called ”global warming”?

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        1. Since I don’t subscribe have Netflix, I wasn’t aware that they put up a warning about automobiles. So I’ll cede you on that point.

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          1. I can’t say about Netflix specifically, but I am sure there are other outlets that have mentioned the negative effects of automobiles.
            Of course, you may live under a rock?

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          2. Should Netflix be tasked with spelling out the negative effects of everything depicted within its programs, or can we trust the viewers to have enough sense to figure it out for themselves?

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          4. Quite the opposite. I prefer to leave the decision-making responsibility up to the individual. But if Netflix wants to risk driving away viewers with its patronizing messages — it’s free to do so as well.

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          6. I smoked for over twenty years. Then I gave it up — cold turkey. It wasn’t easy, but it can be done. And I’m not the only one, because I read that there are now more former smokers than non-smokers in the US.

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          8. In that case perhaps you should champion cigarette advertising once again?
            You can start with an ad campaign telling companies telling the government that how the warning messages on cigarette packets are patronizing.
            Let me know how you get on.

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          9. I think there’s a neutral zone between actively promoting harmful activities and treating grown adults like children — wouldn’t you agree?

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          11. Know what else is addictive? Sugar. Yet you’ve made a business out of peddling this highly addictive substance not only to adults, but to innocent children.

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          12. Duly noted, and yes, I am aware of the addictive properties of sugar.

            I’m aware of the figures related to poor diets which include excess refined sugars but I can’t find stats related to deaths directly attributed to eating birthday, anniversary and wedding cakes.
            I’d be interested to know if you can find them.

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          13. There are no stats related to deaths attributed to Coke or Pepsi, either. But we do know that cakes, pastries, soft drinks, candies, chocolate bars and other sweets are the main delivery vehicles feeding that sugar addiction.

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          14. While poor diet in general cause related deaths in the millions annually, the largest excesses were seen for sugar sweetened beverages – for which stats show 184,000 deaths can be directly attributed – and processed meat and sodium.

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          16. Excess of anything can cause serious health problems, including drinking too much water.

            ….so it’s quite possible that sugar might act as a gateway drug that leads to alcohol, nicotine, amphetamine and opiate addictions.

            I reckon you may be reaching here, Ron.,

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          17. True, but we know sugar is additive — especially for kids. So in the interests of public health and safety, I think it’s high time we start putting graphic health warnings on all products containing sugar.

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          23. Unfortunately, the current nutrient labels are not doing the job. Just like cigarettes, we need larger, more prominent graphic warning labels showing the detrimental health effects of sugar consumption. This would need be done in conjunction with a complete ban on the advertisement, endorsement, promotion and sponsorship of products containing sugar. Those products would be placed behind store counters out of the sight of impressionable children and require patrons to show proper photo ID in order to make a purchase. Movies and TV show depicting the consumption of confections would either have to delete those scenes or accept an R-rating (restricted adult) and show a 1-800-help number before and after the showing as a courtesy for those struggling with sugar addictions.

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          25. All refined sugars are excessive. They cause insulin spikes, which leads to a rapid fall in blood sugar, which triggers your appetite, which leads to overeating, which leads to weight gain, which leads to poor health.

            Fresh, whole, unprocessed plant-based diets and clean water are all your body needs.

            Processed foods are high in calories, low in fibre and devoid of any nutritional value. You don’t need them.

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          26. “Fresh, whole, unprocessed plant-based diets and clean water are all your body needs.” Well, not quite. Almost. You need not only B12 from meat (or synthesized) but all the micro-nutrients meat naturally provides (or synthesized).

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          27. Fair enough. In the interests of full disclosure: I also consume fish and eggs. I’m not a not really a card-carrying PETA supporter, and based on our previous discussions Ark is not too pleased about that.

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          31. In actual fact you (no one) don’t need to .eat other animals. It is all about choice, – no addiction involved, I’m happy to say.

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          32. Yes. but some of us happen to like fish and meat. Plus not everyone has access to an abundance of cheap fresh produce year round. So they supplement their diets with animal proteins. And I don’t see anything wrong with that.

            But I’ll make you a deal: I’ll eliminate all animal products from my diet on the day that you permanently shutter your cake shop. 🙂

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          33. If you feel you are in a position to eliminate all animal products from your diet then why would it be in any way contingent on any action I do?

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          34. Because I’m not a puritan. I subscribe to the theory that so long as you don’t harm another human being you should be free to do as you please — even if it kills you.

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          35. Why human being and not fellow creature? I presume you are aware of how cattle and pigs are raised, for example?
            Surely you don’t for one second believe that, if given the choice they would offer up their lives just to satisfy your taste buds?

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          37. I read somewhere they can be grown in a pot on a sunny window sill, though I have never tried this. I don’t recall if dad ever grew tomatoes – I know we never had a greenhouse.

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    1. And then a short series about all the doctors who were bribed/cajoled to say something disingenuous about cigarette smoking.

      ”Lies, damn lies and statistics.”
      https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#the-global-distribution-of-smoking-deaths

      15% of global deaths are attributed to smoking
      Every seventh death in the world (13%) was the result of direct smoking in 2017; a further 2% was the result of secondhand smoke. This means 15% – close to 1-in-6 deaths was the result of tobacco.

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      1. But I don’t care if someone dies from smoking. There should be some type of smokers cancer clinic where they have to pay their own way though.

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          1. So if the point is to protect everyone from themselves, then you win. I just think living is more than that. When there are no escapes or indulgences left? Food. I’d take smoking over obesity which is the trend. How far do we need to regulate? J

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        2. @Jim

          So if the point is to protect everyone from themselves, then you win. I just think living is more than that.

          As nicotine is addictive and most people start smoking between the ages of 12 and 17 when they are effectively children then, yes, the point IS to protect everyone from themselves.

          Would this really be such a bad thing?

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          1. I suppose with the level of parenting going on, I can accept your rebuttal on this point as a necessary intrusion. But I don’t really like it.

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          2. But I don’t really like it.

            Would you feel it an intrusion if we were talking about cocaine addiction among 12- 17 year olds?
            Would you regard the drug pusher on the street in the same light as a sharp suited tobacco company executive?

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          3. I think the war on drugs has been a failure. I know the way I feel is unpopular, but I don’t concern myself with it. I think it should all be legal, if nothing else it could be taxed and regulated like pot. Here in Washington making it legal virtually unchanged usage rates, while our prisons are full of nonviolent drug users of other types. Making things taboo raises interest, that’s I see in many areas of life.

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          4. @JIM:

            I still think the best way is early education. And if it involves taking someone else’s kids to see for themselves the dead, and hear first-hand from the coughing hacking retching lips of the dying … even better. Reinforce the lessons, no? So long as nobody tells any untruths.

            With the young it’s better to somehow get ’em thinking that smoking isn’t ‘cool’.

            But the rebel is often admired, no? And if the rebel is showing his unique individualist nature by being a coooool dude with a smoke when everyone else is ‘afraid’ to … then what? Wait fifty years to get them along to the clinic where the cool dude is now on life support?
            How can anyone see ’cause and effect’ in such a progression, especially when we rebellious young distrust anyone over forty?

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        3. I agree, the war on drugs has been an abject failure. Portugal realised this and stopped prosecuting users so as to encourage rehabilitation. And it seems to be working.
          Unlike ‘traditional’ drugs – cocaine, heroine, LSD, speed , marijuana etc – cigarettes have always been legal (as far as I am aware) thus giving them a (high) degree of social acceptance if not exactly respectability.
          Also, nicotine does not have the immediate debilitating mental and physical effects of say acid or heroin.

          Again, no one (on these threads) is talking about making the manufacture or sale of cigarettes or other tobacco related products illegal. A move that would be virtually untenable.
          The aim seems to be to wean the population off tobacco use by strict regulation in some areas and more subtle techniques in other areas.
          We all accept the regulations regarding airlines, restaurants pubs, clubs etc.
          When smoking in pubs in the UK was banned it was claimed pubs would close by the hundreds. It did not happen.
          No smoking in such places is now regarded as normal – by smokers and non smokers alike.

          It’s worth noting the huge amount of revenue the US government makes from tobacco ( and I presume other governments as well) of which only a minute portion of is channeled back into non smoking/ health programs of any sort.

          I go back to how tobacco companies were fully aware of the dangerous properties of cigarettes and actively downplayed or lied about these.

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  7. I think if you’re going to smoke, you will. A doctor once said, and he was right, smoking is a pediatrician’s problem, since most smokers come from familys that smoke already. You’re already addicted by the time you’re walking. It’s the second hand smoke that gets ya.
    When I was little the only person in my family that didn’t smoke was my grandmother. I was surrounded with it, and by the time I was 16 I was already lifting cigarettes from the open pack on the table.

    When I quit I had a fairly easy time of it, and wondered why. Then my husband quit, a year later, and I went through serious withdrawal!

    I don’t see that an actor in a movie is going to convince a 15 year old to rush out and spend 7 or 8 bucks for a pack of cigarettes just to try it. Any more than seeing someone drinking in a movie or on TV encourages non drinkers to get drunk. The only difficult part comes when you’ve given up either habit, and here comes someone with the drink, and the smoke, and you think, oh…god…

    And to take it one step further. Are we going to stop showing people eating??? What do fat people do when they see people (gasp) eating food??

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    1. It’s about the image /example being set.

      If the ability to influence people to smoke was not a reality then such images would not have been part and parcel of our culture,
      Think of heroes such as James Bond, The Marlboro Man and any number of ”tough guys” through the ages.
      Think of all the sports once sponsored by cigarette manufacturers.
      Jimi Hendrix was once asked in an interview how many cigarettes he smoked. He replied about a pack a day and he alternated between regular and menthol.
      He also said if he didn’t smoke he’d be fat as a pig!
      If these examples aren’t endorsing smokes then I don’t know what are!

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    2. JUDY:

      I haven’t had a drop of alcohol in years. I never had a problem, was merely a socialiser but knew a few good labels both wine and beer. (I still have Pussers Rum in those big crock things, unopened.)

      Here’s the rub— I never stopped.
      I just didn’t do it any more. (Much like when I was a schoolboy and stopped smoking—after a couple of tries with the gang out in the bush away from authority; never liked it but went along and sat in even though I wasn’t doing it.)

      So to anyone not medically addicted – just don’t do it. No will power, no won’t power, no ticking off days on a calendar, no rewards or big deal for ‘being good’. Just don’t do it. I don’t drive my car at high speed into a power pole every day either, and don’t miss it. (Frivolous analogy? No. I don’t think so.)

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      1. You may want to have that choice, Dog, but Ark doesn’t think you and your opinion matters. At all. You don’t get to have a choice unless you’re a horse’s arse and nob. Well, are you?

        Ark will make and has made that decision for you with his unequivocal support of banning anything to do with tobacco. And he’s done it because he thinks, nay… he knows… it’s just The Right Thing To Do… regardless of what you may think. It doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter because he already knows it’s The Right Thing To Do, you see. And it’s the Right Thing To Do because ‘health’.

        BOOM!

        Case closed.

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        1. We are all of us entitled to an opinion and to air it. Often opinions differ and generate discussion, which is good. So bring it all out and let the viewers decide for themselves who they’ll run with.

          Does it then boil down to eloquence, and/or statistics?

          Are statistics truly representative of Reality?

          I think the discussion could be one more not of smoking versus non-smoking but of Free Speech (oops— ‘straw man’ alert) versus closed minds (oops).

          So is it all about a single disgusting foul filthy polluting poisonous habit or freedom of the individual? Free to do whatever he wants so long as nobody else’s Rights are trespassed against?

          I think … that if someone wants to smoke, let him/her/it go right ahead so much as he/she/it wants to, but far away from me or mine; and if the Government skims profits from tobacco taxes let those profits be profitably used to offset medical care for the nice folks who paid them by smoking.

          Now try this as a thought: let smokers fund their own care; by the costs of such cares being factored into the price of their poisons in the first place—

          —at last, a win/win, no?

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        2. Not once have I said alcohol or cigarettes should be banned.

          Re: the SA Government’s current decision on cigarettes and alcohol.

          I cannot find any reason for their decision to ban cigarettes, other than that cigarettes come under non-essential items.
          Despite calls for the cigarette ban to be lifted the government is holding firm. On the face of it, however, their decision to keep the ban in place seems somewhat spiteful and /or petty.

          As for alcohol: the ”non-essential item” is also their reason for it being banned, and to prevent any large social gathering. (for the purpose of drinking and thus risk further spread of Covid 19)

          As for Netflix: I applaud their decision to include tobacco warnings and to ban all future content that in any way glamorizes and by extension promotes cigarettes or any tobacco product which is a highly addictive substance and can be directly and indirectly linked to approximately 6% of all deaths worldwide.

          As most people start smoking between the ages of 12 – 17 ( I was 14) and are are therefore regarded as children I would have thought you, of all people who are highly vocal about indoctrination etc, would be fully behind Netflix and any organisation that seeks to prevent children from becoming addicts.

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          1. Damn. Just got in from my walk, eyes still set to long range and I read the end of your comment as “… and any organisation that seeks to prevent children from becoming adults.”

            Sheesh!

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      2. Pussers Rum, drank heaps of it and then spewed it up in the gutter in Gibraltar when I was a young fella, this was around the time the poms stopped providing the sailors with their daily tots and it went on sale to the public.

        Smoking cigarettes is disgusting and should ban sales of them, that would save the health services tons of cash, however leave them showing on films for period authenticity.

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        1. … however leave them showing on films for period authenticity.

          Which is what Netflix intend to do , as the post / company statement mentions.

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  8. Hmm. I despise smoking but I’m always a supporter of free expression. If depictions of smoking on tv is encouraging people to do it then it’s a good idea to restrict it somehow. Drawing the line is easier said than done though.

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    1. Liberated:

      I was shown comparative samples of healthy lung tissue and “a smoker who died”‘s lung tissue. Stark difference indeed. (Not that I needed showing but it part of a course at the time.)

      As for showing smoking on TV it may often be simply a part of the background, as in setting the scene. In earlier years if you wanted to show a free spirit tuff guy he had to have a honk-weed hanging from his face—and invariably if he went into a bar there was always the brawl …

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  9. Just speaking personally — there is nothing that anyone can say in defense of smoking that would change my opinion of its nastiness and putrid aftereffects. If Netflix’s decision reduces even one person from “lighting up,” I say BRAVO!

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      1. Ark, I’m surprised at how fully indoctrinated you are on this issue. I would have thought anyone who understood the signs and symptoms of religious indoctrination would be better armed critically from using the same thought process and tactics to defend this scared cow of yours. You keep thinking it’s about health in the same way a religious person thinks it’s about morality. It’s a false defense.

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          1. It’s not about health or you would see equivalent bans on products known to injure. Those equivalencies are all missing. Strange, that… I would have thought by now you’d stop doubling down on your belief and start seeing what’s right before your eyes: anti-smoking ideology in action. That ideology of banning is entirely based on assuming moral superiority over other citizens who do smoke, who do drink, who do behaviours that can harm their health. You, Ark, should feel uncomfortable assuming you have the right to support a general ban that, if you thought about it, could be used as precedence for all kinds of bans. How about banning dogs? They harm many people. Think of teenagers: wouldn’t everyone benefit by banning them? There is no end to this justification that you’ve allowed into public policy by covering the moralistic intention with the misnomer, ‘health’. This is how ‘pro life’ advocates present their morality, too. I am mystified why you have yet to glom onto the disturbing similarities in play here.

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          2. I seems to me that Ark has made it clear he supports this ban for health, not moralistic, reasons.

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          3. “I(t) seems to me that Ark has made it clear he supports this ban for health, not moralistic, reasons.”

            Oh, I know. I’ve encountered the identical reasoning forever…

            Consider: It seems to me that Ron has made it clear he supports this other blog for writing quality, not religious, reasons.

            Consider: It seems to me that Wally has made it clear he supports religious belief and the indoctrinating of vulnerable children with those same beliefs for moral, not religiously indoctrinated, reasons.

            Yes, we can all assume that something someone says is true because someone insists their belief is based on reasons, yet seem immune – even willfully and stubbornly dedicated to them – in spite of compelling and justified criticisms of why those reasons are insufficient. That belief, like Ark’s in this case, doesn’t then make the reasons valid. This is exactly backwards thinking.

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          4. tildeb, your reasoning (on this issue but many others as well) may sound totally justified to you, but it often isn’t enough to convince others … just as their reasoning isn’t enough to convince you. We all have our personal justifications for believing as we do … whether they are academically correct or not.

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          5. @ Tildeb
            As I mentioned to Ron, feel free to plead your case to your government about how they are imposing ”their” morality on companies such as Philip Morris. And while you are at it, you can champion cigarette advertising on such things as Formula 1 racing cars.
            Reinstate cigarette smoking in restaurants, cinemas, pubs , clubs, public transport, national and international passenger aircraft.
            Then you can explain to doctors why your campaign is all about freedom and nothing to do with health at all.
            Let me know how you get on, okay?

            Oh, and if there’s ever an award for Giant Nob Of The Year, I’ll gladly support your nomination.

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          6. How convenient for you to forget/ignore my comment about regulation and build this wonderful straw man. Nothing I haven’t encountered before… but usually when I am criticizing some claim that religion is necessary for morality, that intolerance is necessary for inclusion, that censoring is necessary for free speech, that equity is necessary for diversity, and so on. It’s the same thing, Ark; the issue is about selective banning and how easily we are fooled into believing it’s about the thing, this person, these words, being banned for these reasons over here rather than meeting the requirement to justify the blunt force of intolerant banning and censoring by abusing the powers of the state to implement an ideological agenda that is the antipathy of real tolerance and real respect and real public concern.

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          7. No, it’s not the same thing.
            Creationism, for example, isn’t banned from state school for moral reasons but for scientific reasons.
            Stop behaving like a horse’s arse.

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          8. @Tildeb
            There are two threads on the go, on two separate posts,and I think I am getting the comments crossed.

            Let me try to clarify and we can include responses to both posts on THIS thread, if that suits?

            The ban on the sale of cigarettes and alcohol by the SA government is apparently for health and safety reasons, though some see the move as spiteful.

            The ban seems to have backfired as some claim it is encouraging smokers to look for cigarettes elsewhere thus exacerbating the risk of spreading Covid 19.

            This seems like a valid reason for rescinding the ban.
            As far as I can gather the reasoning behind the alcohol ban was to stop social gathering to drink, also with the aim of limiting the spread of the virus.

            On THIS post, Netflix’s decision regarding cigarettes is explained in the statement the company issued and is self-explanatory.

            Hope we are on the same page?

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          9. Tilde at 2020:

            Bugger … took me so long to rabbit through all the replies to hear I’ve forgotten my point. ‘Scuse me a sec …

            … never mind, ref the above:

            “You keep thinking it’s about health in the same way a religious person thinks it’s about morality. It’s a false defense.”

            For me it’s neither. I just find it an ill mannered intrusion at best, a violation in fact.
            They used to light up in cafes, pubs, bars, restaurants, Brit cinemas … anywhere and everywhere; with no escape short of escaping.
            Hell, they even tried having dedicated smoker zones in some eateries—as someone observed, “a bit like having a pissing end in a swimming pool”. (Sounds like me but sadly it wasn’t …)

            So foul stinking ill-mannered intrusion, deliberate and calculated trespass to the point of assault. No?

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          10. Before we jump to banning, what about regulation?

            This is probably too Canadian of me, but does no one see the hypocrisy between banning smoking on 120 acre university including residences because ‘health’ but insisting that indoor smudging ceremonies that use unfiltered tobacco by First Nations students be made mandatory to open all councils, committees, award ceremonies, and personal purification when desired? Ah, right… silly me…. spiritual health, donchaknow.

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          11. Oh, and pot shops are now considered essential services so they stay open here and, speaking of stink, pot smokers have the legal right to smoke pot anywhere anytime if prescribed by a doctor! Guess the reason! No, seriously, guess what reason could possibly be used? Yup, HEALTH!

            BOOM

            Case closed.

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  11. As for the advertising on racing cars, golfer’s jackets, sails … other than visual clutter, who the hell even notices it? Or is it cleverly intended as one of them ‘subliminal’ things—see me now, not; and read me later unknowingly … and then be compelled in that direction? Brrrr …

    Is the average dolt so dense he/she has to run out at once buy a truckload of ciggies ‘cos his pet golfer is implied to be using them?

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    1. If advertising cigarettes on any medium was a waste of time and had no effect then the ”average dolt” wouldn’t react toward any product advertised.
      This is not the case, however.

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        1. Fight the battles you can win.
          Are drugs glamorized in movies? Pot, maybe?
          Maybe when the USA (it’s Hollywood after all) changes its approach to firearms perhaps this will be reflected in films?
          FWIW, Portugal has stopped prosecuting drug users</em, encouraging rehabilitation.
          Seems to be working too!

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          1. In my opinion film doesn’t glamorize any of the above. Selecting tobacco as something to marginalize (however reasonable that may be) strikes me as a tepid attempt to gain favour.

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          2. If film doesn’t glamorize cigarettes then why bother showing ads such as the Marboro Man?
            (Who died of cancer)
            Or the Camel man, trekking through swamps and jungles.
            Or Peter Stuyvessant ads that showed fit and healthy young people frolicking in scenes of sun,sand and sea.

            Many films were partly funded by tobacco firms on the condition/understanding that certain actors would smoke.
            Think James Bond as a perfect example.
            Or this American icon …
            https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/john-wayne-camel-cigarettes/

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          4. Smoking is lousy any way you slice it, but it’s legal. My point being, everyone knows it so why claim film glamorizes it when in fact that glamorization has dwindled to nothing?

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          7. Smoking is a lazy target, it makes powers that be feel like they’re taking a stand. Can’t smoke in parks, on beaches, in apartment complexes, but still government collects exorbitant sin tax on cigarettes.

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          8. The reaction to vaping is very interesting, including the same flippant fascist bans and exorbitant taxes because it’s deemed to be equivalent to ‘smoking’, and all smoking as everybody knows is bad. Of course, all the reasons people use for being hysterically anti-smoking simply fall away with vaping. Doesn’t matter, and that offers a real insight into the heart of the hysteria.

            The public appetite to banning vaping shows me that support for banning is unadulterated virtue signalling, pure and simple as far as I can tell.The most prevalent reason for anti-vaping seems to be that vaping can lead to smoking! Good grief.

            This anti-smoking hysteria reminds me of the public hysteria around marijuana as the Demon Drug back in the day, exposing our kids to Reefer Madness! Public Service films were designed and distributed to be shown at school, with such gems as “many are the wild orgies it has produced, that the habitual marijuana user finally loses his mind and becomes a raving maniac, and it is said that those who smoke marijuana frequently die suddenly.” But even that wasn’t good enough for the temperance league of public officials busy convincing the public that they should be clutching their pearls in fear. Government publications warned us unsuspecting victims that smoking the drug produces “a species of insanity which frequently ends in a horrible death.”

            Is this any different than the current indoctrination of children that tells them smoking will produce lung cancer and will kill you, that the same danger lurks within every whiff of tobacco smoke? What’s true doesn’t matter, in that smoking increases the risk of certain lung diseases and that there is zero evidence that second hand smoke outside a contained area poses any credible health risk whatsoever. Doesn’t matter. Reefer Madness! In fact, the real risk is so small for secondhand smoke outside a contained area that it doesn’t even rank to the known carcinogens found in motor vehicle exhaust. Naturally the correct response should be to ban the car, ban the bus, ban the truck, ban the motorcycle, ban lawn mowers and snow blowers, ban the Zamboni! Ban, ban, ban! It’s the virtuous solution!

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          10. Thanks for calling my reasoning ‘rhetoric’. We wouldn’t want to present it as a reasonable alternative without first defining it with the conclusion we want to reach. Trump does this all the time with his little pejorative adjectives to malign someone’s character first before waving away whatever reasons that person might offer for justified criticism or facts. This, too, is an unpleasant tactic. But the woke tone police seem blind to the practice when it’s the Right Thing To Do.

            That said, I am calling out the facetious reasoning used for supporting the fascist tactic of banning. This support for banning is virtue signalling but at the cost of eliminating personal choice in the name of something else, something usually enlightened and liberal. In this case, the something else is called ‘health’. This is a common tactic. But it’s dishonest. The support for such banning is a great danger to all of us and we are being manipulated into correct GroupThink when we individually go along with the vilification of those who dare to question the fascist tactic. It is divisive, partisan, and deeply anti-liberal because it is intolerance in action.

            What is being lost is a deep sense of respect for the rights we share. My choice. Your choice. Respecting the choice of other must match the respect we wish for ourselves. Banning eliminates this choice for everyone. Banning is a knee-jerk, regressive attitude that is deeply anti-liberal and it needs challenging whenever and wherever and by whomever promotes it. It is fascist and intolerant and needs to be revealed as such. Using a virtuous cover, a disguise, produces the opposite of virtue in action; supporting such bans no matter what virtue is used to justify it is a vice and should be revealed as such.

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          11. What is being lost is a deep sense of respect for the rights we share.

            This is where you lose the plot.

            Tobacco is a product that kills. It is addictive and cigarettes contain chemicals to increase the dependency/addiction, all of which were either denied or played down.

            Those who did not smoke were ‘forced’ to suffer tobacco smoke in almost every conceivable social or public situation.

            They had little or no choice, consequently their rights were completely ignored.

            You can whine on this all you like, but you are simply making yourself look very silly.

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          12. Again and again, regulation to take into account the rights of others is perfectly acceptable. What isn’t acceptable are people support policies that take away rights from some for reasons that are not sufficient. You simply are not respecting the right of someone to purchase a legal product and then covering this loss of a right you enjoy with all kinds of health-related and trobacco company smoke, if you’ll pardon the pun.

            There is a difference here, Ark, and you keep trying to lump me into a pro-smoking person oblivious to the health concerns tobacco introduces and someone who supposedly wants to fill every room with smoke in the same way pro-lifers try to portray concern and support for female reproductive health care into an anti-life, murdering definition. This is a tactic for doubling down and I think it is beneath you. I do not think I have the right to take away your right to choose and use something and I feel it would be hypocritical of me to advocate for this action against you but not against me for this product I condemn but not this product I use. There is a middle ground called ‘regulation’ for products that have some long term associated harm. What I find offensive is people who selectively support this over that simply because it aligns with their personal preferences and not because it withstands principled scrutiny.

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          14. No, I’m not going to lay out legislation for your approval, Ark. That’s way too much work. But I will say regulation that addresses any parts of smoking that causes harm to others is a very good place to start.

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          19. That is why bans must meet a very high criteria of promoting peace and order because it is the social aspect of shared rights that is being curtailed. There has to be a very good reason for it that easily meets this criteria. Creating a criminal class by fiat, like in the case of banning the sale of tobacco and alcohol, does not meet this standard. Appropriate regulation is all the protection people need to enhance peace and order; they must be respected to make poor choices if we wish to have our own good choices respected.

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          20. First, Netflix is a private company and they can do what the hell they like providing they do not contravene the current law.

            The tobacco companies meet the criteria of a criminal class and have been for decades.

            Really, Tildeb, give it up already. You are beginning to comer across as whining and your arse backwards ”defense” in this instance is a weak as secondhand tea.

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          21. I wonder why they don’t select, say, tattoos and piercings as a warning top post because of the influence seeing famous people who wear them will have on their children? Could it be a case of selective moralizing rather than any real concern of harm?

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          22. Actually Ronaldo does not have any tattoos as he is a blood donor.

            The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing more than 8 million people a year around the world. More than 7 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.

            https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco

            Moralizing? Well … maybe.

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          23. All true… but this has nothing to do with banning. That’s the leap that is nothing more than hysterical virtue signalling but one that really does attack and undermine equality rights for the individual.

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          27. Yes, the evidence is overwhelming that legalization and regulation works to reduce all manner of social ills associated with certain behaviours. The same is not true of banning. Doesn’t seem to matter, however, does it?

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          29. I am talking about the drop in various social misbehaviour linked by assumption to the ban on sale of legal products and why such bans should not be endorsed.

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          30. I think this was explained in the comment.
            Certainly, during lockdown it seems counterproductive for cigarettes but there is merit for alcohol.

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  13. Anyone else recognize the irony of corporations promoting tobacco for profit, decades later other corporations promoting smoke free content for profit projections based on anti-smoking sentiment?

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    2. @ Notes.

      Except the former deliberately lied then tried to cover up those lies when called out.
      Now they try to keep their heads down while still pushing cigarettes creating as many addicts as they can.

      Making a profit is how we are able to survive. You do it in your business and I do it in mine.
      We are not greedy about it and I’ll take it that you aren’t either.

      Netflix do it in their business. It just so happens they are also trying to promote a healthier image and perhaps foster a new generation that might be fortunate to avoid lung cancer and other tobacco related killer diseases.

      As current parlance might describe: I’m down with that!

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      1. See? This is the indoctrination speaking when it links smoking directly with lung cancer and provides the faulty reasoning necessary to assume lung cancer can be ‘avoided’ by not smoking. This is pure, unadulterated bullshit. Smoking in contained areas have been shown to increase the risk of lung cancer (and other cancers). There is an important difference, in that hysteria is raised about any tobacco smoke because it supposedly causes lung cancer. This is not true. But it is widely believed by those people who decide for themselves it must be so. This is a faith-based belief, Ark, and it is a faith-based belief that is then imported into the public domain and is used to justify all kinds of anti-smoking policies and bylaws including bans.

        You can’t criticize others for importing faith-based beliefs into the public domain and imposing them on everyone – for their own good – as unreasonable when you yourself support exactly that in the case of tobacco use.

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        2. In the United States, cigarette smoking is linked to about 80% to 90% of lung cancer deaths. … People who smoke cigarettes are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke. Even smoking a few cigarettes a day or smoking occasionally increases the risk of lung cancer.

          Indoctrination?

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          1. Yes, indoctrination.

            You said that, “It just so happens they (Netflix) are also trying to promote a healthier image and perhaps foster a new generation that might be fortunate to avoid lung cancer and other tobacco related killer diseases.”

            That latter part is indoctrination speaking because it is not true, Ark. It is a belief statement to justify their position stated like it’s true. I explained when it is indoctrination:

            “when it links smoking directly with lung cancer (false) and provides the faulty reasoning necessary to assume lung cancer can be ‘avoided’ by not smoking.” That’s EXACTLY what you did. It’s a logical extension of the belief statement but does not comport with reality. Lung cancer cannot be avoided if one does not smoke. That’s reality.

            I then explained why it is indoctrination:

            “Smoking in contained areas have been shown to increase the risk of lung cancer (and other cancers).” Note what causes a rise in the rate of lung cancer: smoking in contained areas specifically, but a strong correlation with smoking generally.

            I then explained how this is indoctrination by you accepting and promoting a faith-based belief in place of reality, that smoking causes lung cancer, a position that necessarily skews and misrepresents reality to fit with an accepted ideology, when I said “hysteria is raised about any tobacco smoke because it supposedly causes lung cancer.” No, it doesn’t. It raises the risk and risks can be mitigated even by smokers!

            Why is this comment somehow lacking detail for you to understand my accusation of indoctrination? Or are you putting a question mark behind the term you wish to challenge because it allows you to believe an answer has not been provided? Again, I think this is a typical tactic to divert and not an honest attempt by you to understand and then critique.

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          3. Linked to is not caused by. That is why this information is presented this way and specifically for wider distribution, which is fine. But I know, and you know, many people won’t grasp the subtlety here.

            But, regardless, this is the health aspect that should not be used as the supposed justification to remove a person’s right to purchase and use tobacco because it has nothing whatsoever to do with public peace and order.

            Ron’s point about sugar is quite relevant here and yet who is banning its use, or signalling their virtue on screens as if a warning of its viewing is appropriate, even though it has just a strong an anti-health argument to support it… as do many, many products? Why only tobacco?

            That’s my point. This is an ideology in play.

            Why deny people this right regarding ONLY the private purchasing and private use of tobacco but not all the other products that can be linked to all kinds of health issues… such as known carcinogens as vehicle exhaust and yet show these vehicles ona screen without the appropriate warning?

            That’s why it’s an ideology being implemented here disguised as a health issue. You seem to think the health issue alone justifies its special treatment. I think that is really poor thinking in play for a variety of very compelling reasons.

            BTW, every cancer is linked to drinking water, breathing, and sleeping, too. Just sayin’…

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          4. Do a quick search and read the latest regulations regarding warning labels on products containing added sugar.

            https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco

            The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing more than 8 million people a year around the world.

            Second-hand smoke is the smoke that fills restaurants, offices or other enclosed spaces when people burn tobacco products such as cigarettes, bidis and water-pipes. There are more than 7000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, of which at least 250 are known to be harmful and at least 69 are known to cause cancer.

            There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.

            The fact that the health risks have been known by the tobacco industry for decades and purposely hidden speaks volumes.
            And yet here you are claiming ideology and not health and defending for all your worth supposed rights regarding cigarettes.

            I think you ought to stop being disingenuous. You are beginning to sound like someone defending the tobacco industry.

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          5. Did you happen to notice that bit about harm if smoke is contained? See? I really have tried to be as fair as I can when dealing with tobacco as a health issue because of the the banning issue is based as it supposedly only as a health concern. You have hitched your wagon to this health aspect; I keep saying it’s not about health. If it were about health, then there are literally hundreds if not thousands of other products and practices deserving of the same banning, the same restrictions, the same warnings, the same scope of vilification, because they all share the same health concerns in various ways and so not pointing out these products and practices, not banning them, not restricting them at P.O.P. and advertising, not vilifying them equivalently carry the same accusation: promoting them and putting our children and the vulnerable at risk. But all of these OTHER health concerns are absent, aren’t they? In their place is One. Single. Product.

            I am saying this selection of one single product is not an accident but an intentional target for vilification, not for health reasons per se but to enable a moralistic agenda disguised as a health concern.

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          6. I’ll make the effort to read the rest of your comment once you answer this:

            What ”banning issue” exactly are you talking about.
            No extended commentary,waffle or any other type of drawn-out exhaustive Tildeb-style ramble if you please.

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  14. Wow~!

    All I can contribute is a wee quote from a Brit TV series called (from memory) “Bootsie and Snudge”—

    “Tobacco is a filthy weed
    That from the Devil doth proceed—
    It stains your teeth, and it stains your clothes;
    And makes a chimney of your nose!”

    I don’t think ol’ Snudge was any manner of rabid Christian, he was just making a point.

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  15. As far as I was aware, Netflix announced this months ago. It’s only doing it with its own productions, not with anyone else’s. Shouldn’t Netflix be in control of its own content?

    Also, if people watch Netflix because of the portrayal of smoking, they’re free to not subscribe to the service anymore. The same would be true if Netflix decided to increase smoking in shows and people objected.

    The idea that Netflix is censoring people or policing speech here is ludicrous.

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