Anti-Smoking Campaigns

are full-force here in NYC.

I 'm on the uptown train and one of the posters is right next to me at eye level. It shows a woman with most of her fingers missing. I've seen her on a TV commercial that runs frequently. Smoking gave her artery disease which necessitated 20 amputations.

There have been other posters and commercials that are just as scary. Some parents are protesting that these posters are too frightening for children, It's a good bet that most of those parents are smokers.

When I was a kid commercials for cigarettes were still allowed on television.

People walked a mile for a Camel. Virginia Slims told young liberated women that having their own cigarette meant they had come a long long way.

In one truly horrifying episode of Ben Casey a pregnant woman was trapped in an elevator with a hospital worker. The electrical power had gone off, and the woman was becoming more and more frightened. The attendant offered her a smoke, which she accepted, and lit one up for himself.

I've been off cigs for a while now. When I pass groups of teens smoking it makes me sad.

I want to yell, "You'll be coughing up a lung in a few years."

They probably would laugh at me the way I laughed at the warnings years ago.

The ads are not scary enough.