Smoke and Mirrors
Do you want the eye, the dead toe, the baby or Bryan?
Graphic health warnings on cigarette packages are designed to shock smokers out of their habit. However, new research has found many smokers are mis-interpreting the warnings to justify their habits. This includes teenage pregnant girls smoking to reduce the size of their babies, and smokers making requests for the health warning least threatening to them.
Dr Simone Dennis, an anthropologist from Australian National University, spent ten years researching Australia’s smoking culture for her book Smokefree. She joins Jamie to lift the haze on persistant smokers in an atmosphere increasingly hostile to lighting up.