U.S. court strikes down graphic warnings on cigarettes

[DeSwiss]

30. After developing devastating health consequences.....

...I too quit smoking on January 31, 2009, - that was the day I went into the hospital for surgery to correct 40 years of smoking's damage. And while there to get that fixed, they found more goodies -- also linked to smoking.

Yet I would rather endure a lifetime of ugly tobacco disease pictures than to risk even one person going through what I have. Not to mention what others have gone through that is much worse. I wish now these kinds of pics had been around when I was a kid watching John Cameron Swazey's Old Golds wafting smoke on his news desk or Johnny Carson taking a puff as they came back from commercials. They made it all seem so right and normal.

Tobacco has few positives and while we can explain much of this continued smoking behavior on the past lack of understanding -- particularly since we were lied to so thoroughly and by doctors no less -- we now know that disease and heartache is the potential future for smokers who ignore these warnings. Not to mention the widows and children left behind in smoking's wake.

Are these pics over-the-top? Yes. That's what it'll take to try to undo the normalization of swallowing smoke into our lungs. And if we believe that the government has a responsibility to provide healthcare for all Americans in order to protect their health, then I think these picture warnings are part and parcel with that goal.

IMHO