Ads which the tobacco industry was forced to create to appease the government. They obviously aren't trying very hard. Billboards with Joe Camel have been replaced with a picture of an ugly girl smoking with the word "BUTT HEAD" scrawled next to it. On television, there are ads with a bunch of computer windows which pop up with the word the truth in them with some kid babbling on about how smoking sucks. I have no urge to smoke myself, but these ads are just plain bad and should just be taken off the market. I never, even as a young child saw some guy like Joe Camel and felt like lighting up a cig. Sure cigarettes are responsible for deaths every year, but we shouldn't go after advertising as the main problem, people choose to smoke, they aren't told to.

When I was a senior in high school, there was an anti-smoking banner hanging up in the hallway. This banner featured cartoon drawings of a realistic cat and dog, both with lit cigarette butts hanging from their mouths. The text to accompany this image read: "It looks just as stupid when you do it."

Despite being a smoker, this ad cracked me up for a good five minutes. It was just so silly! The cat and dog both really did look stupid as hell with cigarettes hanging from their mouths. I don't think this banner was very effective in its mission, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The latest anti-tobacco ads are pretty manipulative, though. Very graphic and disturbing. One of the most recent ones I've seen concerns young children and chewing tobacco. Pure voices sing a sweet song in the background ("Do you remember the day we met? That's the day I knew you were my pet") while underage kids spit out disgusting gobs of chaw from their mouths and expose bleeding gums and missing teeth. Not since the juxtaposition of the song "Singin' in the Rain" and the rape scene in A Clockwork Orange has there been such a sick marriage of innocent music and vile imagery.