I've noticed that despite all
the high profile hoopla, smoking is back in vogue, especially
among little girls.
Being an ex-smoker, I am required by law to become rabidly
anti-smoking, so I am. And as a rabid anti-smoking ex-smoker,
one of my beliefs is that cigarette companies should dispense
with the classic cancer warning on their packets in favor of
some warnings smokers can use. The classic warning is only of
use to non-smokers as a reason to tell smokers not to smoke.
Smokers don't care. In fact, the more it makes non-smokers uppity,
the better smokers like it. It would be nice if the warning label
gave smokers some advice that hit home, maybe even revealed some
truths they might not be privy to since they see things from
the moist end of another nail in their coffin. Here are nine
additional warnings I'd like to see on cigarette packages.
"WARNING: SMOKING CIGARETTES will make the average hangover
seem like your body is five feet in front of you and filled with
bowling balls and bugs. The worst!"
"WARNING: SMOKING CIGARETTES will, at some point, cause you to drunkenly light the wrong end of the cigarette, which will make other people laugh at you and create an awful burning plastic stink."
"WARNING: SMOKING CIGARETTES will cause you to forfeit as many as three boozy drinks so you can buy a pack one night in a bar or club because you need something to do with your stinky hands before you go home and pass out."
"WARNING: SMOKING CIGARETTES will put you in a situation of such desperation that one day you will bum a menthol, smoke it, and then try to justify this strange act akin to smoking mouthwash."
"WARNING: SMOKING CIGARETTES will not make young people seem more mature, as is widely believed. Rather, it makes them look like 13 year olds who are trying to look more grown-up by smoking cigarettes. Wanna' be adults? Try paying your own bills."
"WARNING: SMOKING CIGARETTES helps keep young girls too
skinny, thereby enlisting them into 
The
Warped Female Self-Image Cadre Of Evil. Which is run by men.
Fat men. Fat men trying to sell you cream for your smoker's acne."
"WARNING: SMOKING CIGARETTES is a particularly dull form of self-destruction that doesn't qualify you, or any of the thousands of secretaries standing outside their offices, as a rebel anymore than piercing your brow does. Unless you're French, of course."
"WARNING: SMOKING CIGARETTES is a really silly thing for vegetarians to do, don't you think? Cancer by steak not natural enough for you?"
"WARNING: SMOKING CIGARETTES supports a cadre of corporations who, in their quest to be above the law on so many levels, are more evil than McDonald's, Coke, and Disney combined - even if you made Dr. Doom CEO of all three and gave him a weather control machine and bikini clad go-go assassins! You might as well just skin your pet and wear the fur while you're at it, Little Miss Political Action!"
Of course, to fit all these warnings in, they'd have to manufacture bigger packages, which, of course, would mean bigger cigarettes. This, at the very least, would make the little girls happy. And really, really thin.