cigarette

Smokers vs. non-smokers: A 50-year health and financial comparison【Video】

We all know that smoking is an unhealthy habit. Each year about 200,000 people in Japan alone die from smoking- (and passive smoking-) related illnesses. On a global scale, about six million die from smoking-related diseases every year.

In an effort to reduce the number of smokers in Japan, Japanese anti-smoking NPO No Smoke holds an annual video contest titled “Tobacco is Harmful to Your Health”, calling for original video submissions that raise awareness of the dangers and harmful effects of smoking.

The first-place winner of the video contest held in 2012 created a movie highlighting the simple differences between smokers and non-smokers in terms of financial cost. As we’re about to see, smoking is not only harmful to your health but a horribly expensive habit.

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In many countries around the world governments and health organizations have been tightening the noose ever more around the already choking necks of average smokers.  By taxing the hell out of them and limiting smoking areas to under the floorboards of your house, smokers can scarcely relax with their favorite addiction.

Then we have the warning labels. Japanese cigarette packs have very minimal labels – for now – with some classy embossed printing.  Other countries such as Canada have been using graphic labels for quite some time.  They are rather unpleasant images of rotten teeth and people with tubes in their throat.

As bad as those images are they tend to lose their shock value quickly to the point that most smokers hardly notice them anymore.  Thailand, however, has taken the graphic label concept beyond unpleasant and into nightmare territory.

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