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General News Actor who played Marlboro Man dies from smoking related illness

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Tightrope, Jan 27, 2014.

  1. Tightrope

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    I always thought that Marlboro men were models who were picked because they had a certain rugged look and were just told to put a cigarette in their mouth for photo shoots. Evidently, some are or were actual smokers. Just recently, one of the many who played the Marlboro Man has died from an illness apparently related to his smoking. He began smoking at 14. He was 72. Today, that's early. I am glad that there is less smoking in this country, but am still disappointed when I see people light up because they got hooked at an early age out of peer pressure or doing it because it was cool.

    Actor who played Marlboro Man in ads dies from smoking-related disease - U.S. News
     
  2. GingerGuy

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    You should travel to France then. I'm in Paris right now, and here, smoking is more ingrained in society than in any other country I've been to. I see children who look as young as 14 carrying their cigarettes to school, men and women smoking publicly, and huge tabacarie stores. I believe it's really sad, since I will certainly not smoke I'm my life, no more than one cigarette during a party - per year. And the earlier you get into it, the harder it is to leave it. The French are usually very healthy and could have the longest possible lifespan if they didn't smoke so much.

    I try not to be the moralistic guy who tells people all the time to quit smoking, because after all they know the risks they are bringing to their own health. But it's hard not to do so, considering that they are not hurting only themselves, but also their families and friends, both directly an indirectly. Research shows that passive smoking, that is, living with a smoker in the house, also increases the risk for several types of cancer.

    So, smoking is not an act of stupidity only, but a selfish one as well.
     
  3. Kasey

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    That surprises me as much as the sky being blue.
     
  4. Bolin

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    Wow. Such shock. Many surprise. One of my good friends is now a chain smoker because of peer pressure from his ex. It makes me sad since I had a couple of relatives die from smoking related illnesses. A shame, really.
     
  5. dano218

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    I read this and Im sadly thinking what a coincidence.
     
  6. Gen

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    To start smoking at fourteen and make it to seventy-two is quite a long life compared to most. Ironically, many commercials during his childhood would have advocated smoking as a healthy habit. It's odd how much understanding can change over a few decades.
     
  7. Rakkaus

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    I'm pretty sure this isn't the first 'Marlboro Man' to die of lung cancer or some other smoking-related illness.

    The irony of the whole 'Marlboro Man' thing- and a testament to the power of mass-marketing to shape perceptions and group psychology- is that Marlboro was originally considered a lady's cigarette, filtered smooth for women to buy. Filtered cigarettes were feminine, not for masculine men. So the brilliant advertising execs devised the 'Marlboro Man' and instantly transformed the image of Marlboro into the kind of cigarette smoked by rugged, manly cowboys out on the frontier. And of course, especially in the 1950s when this ad campaign started, this appealed greatly to men wanting to assert their traditional masculinity, so Marlboro became a manly cigarette.

    I agree with GingerGuy above though. One area in which in the United States is surprisingly lightyears ahead of most of the world in terms of public health is cigarette smoking. In America today there is a tremendous social stigma against smoking that far outweighs the 'cool' image associated with smoking in yesteryears. Whereas business offices, airplane flights, and even hospitals and doctor's offices used to be filled with smoke, of course we've completely banned smoking in those environments, but we've even banned smoking in private bars, restaurants, clubs, parks, any public place. (Here in NYC, pretty much any place where you are around other people, it is illegal to smoke). The cost of cigarettes is also mad expensive, here in NYC with taxes and fees it's now like $13 a pack. If you smoke a pack or two a day, that's quite an expensive way to slowly kill yourself.

    In the U.S., smokers who work in tall office buildings in NYC have to take the elevator all the way to the ground floor (they certainly couldn't have taken the stairs without panting and passing out), and then huddle in the freezing cold with their fellow smokers as people walking by with their children give them dirty looks. In modern America, smokers are a dwindling minority looked down upon by mainstream society.

    In Europe, on the other hand, smoking still remains largely ubiquitous. Even though European countries have finally put warning labels on cigarettes in recent decades, knowledge and education about the true dangers of smoking are still limited (and of course this is all even worse in developing countries like China and India). You can see 12 and 13-year-old kids lighting up on European streets, having no clue what they are doing to their bodies in the long-term.

    I remember in Rome, besides the tabaccherie (govt tobacco stores) with big "T" signs on every corner, there were even vending machines on the street where anyone could just buy a pack of Marlboros on the cheap. Cobblestone streets were covered in cigarette butts. Italy is actually one of the less bad European countries when it comes to smoking, the smoking rates a bit lower there than in other Euro countries, in fact I think they have laws against smoking in restaurants, but it's hardly enforced, you walk into a local little restaurant in Catania, Sicily, and you can find the owner sitting at his desk puffing away. Nobody is going to bother him.

    Things were worse when I went to Austria. Walk into one of Vienna's famed cafes, and it's like walking into a gigantic cloud of toxic smoke. Fortunately a lot of them now at least have non-smoking sections. I remember walking into Cafe Sperl in Vienna, they had a smoking section and a non-smoking section. I had to walk through the smoking section, you could barely see or breathe the air was so filled with smoke.

    But the worst I've seen is in Russia. Russians act shocked and are in genuine total disbelief when you tell them you don't smoke. Everyone smokes all the time. And cigarettes are dirt cheap, you could buy a pack for 50 rubles (about $1.40), every store seemed to sell them. Every place you walked was filled with smokers puffing away.

    Since Russia is the closest I've been to a "developing county", I certainly have zero doubts about what I've hard about how bad the smoking rates are in developing countries like China, where there is even less education and awareness about the dangers of smoking.
     
  8. That1Guy

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    My thoughts exactly :lol:
     
  9. Aussie792

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    My old teacher was on a flight from Moscow to Belgrade, and he told me that about a dozen passengers bribed the stewardess to turn of the smoke alarm. She accepted, and almost everyone began to smoke.

    Finland was pretty bad with cigarettes, but nothing as bad as what I've heard of Continental Europe.

    And as for the death; poor guy, but it's hardly unexpected for a smoker to die young.
     
  10. GingerGuy

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    You shouldn't put all developing countries in the same box. I am from Brazil, and in here, while there is a fair share of smokers, smoking campaigns are largely successful, and there has been a steady decline in smoking in the past decades. Our problem now is rising obesity rates, which affects pretty much all countries today, rich and poor alike. What makes the difference is the culture, and not the level of development. However, while a citizen of a First World Country can, if he is obese, a smoker or has any other unhealthy habits, be backed up by an efficient healthcare system designed to make their lives longer (but not better), someone born in the Third World has no suck luck, unless they come from a privileged social class. In other words, Brazil is going to suffer even more than America when it comes to weight diseases, if nothing is done to change the (in my opinion unchangeable) course.