>>Related, has anyone else been seeing those weird Phillip Morris anti-smoking ads lately? It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what's going on...
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>>Anti-smoking is verrryyy popular in the US - my county just banned it almost entirely. But for much of the rest of world, the tobacco market is still peaking...I'll bet top dollar those PM ads aren't shown round the world.
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>You're talking to the wrong guy, Bruce - look very closely at my picture ;-)

Smokers aren't supposed to read this, Jim. Michel needs to add a smoker's filter (terrible pun intended :-) Actually, I smoked for 15 years, so I can relate...

>And why are the tobacco companies producing any anti-smoking ads at all? If you can believe what you read, PM is actually increasing the the likelyhood of teen smoking (12-17). Maybe there should have been a clause against any advertising whatsoever, since their public service ads don't seem to have the desired result. It seems the lawyers let that slip through the cracks.

I've heard that argument, like it's to attract attention and make the behavior seem anti-social (which teens always seem to like, I know I did), and there may be some truth to it. And perhaps they are also trying to actually be construed as being *honest* after all the news of cover-ups and lies. I would buy into that argument, too. But I still maintain, from everything I've read or seen, that the *real* target for tobacco now is overseas, not US anymore. IMO, they've given it up as a long term loss here.

>Enough thread drift...

I don't know, I don't think we're being off-topic as long as we stick to "overseas" and "corporate greed" as in the above - but you're right about the "bans," I agree, that's for a different thread.