We Fight for Freedom: But We Give it Up by Smoking
Imagine years from now, you are out with friends and have to remove yourself from the group to get your nicotine fix of the quarter hour. Then another quarter hour after that, and so on to the point you have no idea what is going on in the conversation. You go to family get-togethers and you are removing yourself from the reunion of your family every fifteen minutes. Your mom asks you to go to the store for something she forgot, and your niece wants to go with you, but your sister says no because you smoke in the car. All of these things, these good times, special moments, connections to others, and freedoms taken from you, by you, and you never even knew it. I believe The Real Cost commercial, accurately portrays what happens when you smoke cigarettes. This commercial properly displays why teens shouldn’t smoke and inputs fear into them in hope of preventing them from smoking, by explaining to them what they are giving up by smoking cigarettes. In this day in time, why do we fight for our freedom just to give it up by smoking cigarettes?
In the commercial, Amanda Green is reading a contract on a paper that then rolls back up into the form of a cigarette. Amanda states, “…not a kid anymore. Now that I finally have freedom to define who I am, I hereby agree to be bound to you.” (0:09) This is meant to scare teens out of smoking because it shows them that even though you are now old enough to make this decision about yourself and old enough to buy smoking and smoking paraphernalia products it isn’t a smart decision because you are relinquishing your freedom to smoking.
Amanda then begins stating the freedoms she is giving up by choosing to smoke. Amanda first states “To let you decide how to spend my money.” (0:11) In the article How Much Money Does Smoking Cost You? by Alaya Linton, Linton explains that the average smoker that smokes a pack a day spends approximately $188 a month on cigarettes, and multiplying to $2,292 per year. But depending on where you live, it could be even more expensive than that. Linton goes on to explain, as an example, that in New York City cigarettes are almost twice the average price of cigarettes causing their monthly purchase to be near to $320 per month and spending around $3,895 a year. I took the time to look up the average cost of cigarettes in Nashville, Tennessee, where I live, and according to worldpopulationview.com the average pack in Tennessee is $5.30. This means you would be spending $159 a month and amounting to $1,908 a year.
Amanda’s next point is ‘To let you set my boundaries,” (0:14) When visiting anzmh.asn.au, The Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association’s website, it talks about how smoking affects your emotional boundaries. Smokers tend to smoke because they believe it is a good stress and anxiety reliever. The associations states that “…nicotine can cause a feeling of relaxation and a feeling of stress relief. However, over time, due to the strong addiction that nicotine causes, these affects get milder and withdrawals starts to occur.” I find it important that we understand how we can get so entrenched in an addiction. In the beginning we choose to engage in this relaxing activity occasionally. Eventually it is no longer a choice as we begin engaging more and more, creating additional stress for us because it becomes an undeniable need. “Once addicted, the smoker can start to feel negative affects to their mood unless they are smoking, and this is due to withdrawals from nicotine.” This is important to note because the freedom to walk away from this addiction stops existing. Your emotions are surrounded by this nicotine fixation and you are bound to it in a way that you cannot escape from easily.
Amanda’s last point that she states is “And to come running the instant you snap your fingers.” (0:16)
Mondaycampaigns.org calculated how much time a smoker spends smoking cigarettes, and it calculated to 6 minutes per cigarette. We are speaking in terms of a pack a day (20 cigarettes) so that averages to 2 hours a day (the length of a movie), 60 hours a month, and 720 hours (30 days) a year smoking which the site equated to enough time to learn a new language. Equating time to money, 720 hours is the equivalent of 90, 8-hour shifts. 8 hours multiplied by Tennessee’s minimum wage pay of $7.25 (90x $7.25) is $652.5 lost that a smoker could’ve made, not accounting what they lost in spending for cigarettes. After taking the money you lost by smoking instead of working and subtracting what you spend on cigarettes a year ($625.5-$1,908) it puts you in a debt of -$1,255.5. Overall, this commercial helps realistically explain to teens what they are giving up if they decide to smoke, but there are some commercials that do not put helpful facts into their commercial that teens will pay attention to.
A commercial I found that was not very helpful was created by The Twin Life Zone on YouTube.
This commercial consisted of why you shouldn’t smoke or should stop based on your kids. Although teen pregnancy does happen it is not super common therefore this commercial is irrelevant to them. Teens do not need to worry about kids being affected by them smoking, because they don’t have kids and all they need to worry about is themselves. This commercial also only uses facts about how children are affected by smoking and doesn’t give you any information about smokers. Without given the information on how it affects the smoker, they are not going to pay much attention. The Real Cost commercial I chose to write about pushes the questions “How much money do I really spend on cigarettes?” and “How much time do I spend smoking them?” which makes smokers care about what they’re doing with their life.
Something that makes the commercial even better is their slogan When you light up, you sign up. It is something easy to remember and it is relevant to what they are advertising. Their slogan helps you to remember their brand and by remembering who they are you may take the time to look up their website which has very resourceful information.
We want to protect ourselves from ourselves, save and enjoy all of these things, these good times, special moments, connections to others, and every other basic everyday freedom. We can take this commercial as literal as it is. Choosing to smoke is a lifetime commitment, a contract with the tobacco, nicotine, and ourselves to never have full control over when, how and where we engage and participate in life or our health in the end. By protecting ourselves from such an long term, life stealing choice, we protect our freedom to be healthy, fully participate in activities, and not be regulated to the smoking section out in the cold or heat while everyone else is inside comfortable and having a good time.