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WTF, America? The Office of the Surgeon General has released a new report saying teen smoking is now at epidemic levels. Have these kids actually missed those giant pictures of blackened lungs in every school nurse's office and horrific ads on every TV channel?
This is the first youth smoking report to come out of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since 1994, and the numbers are almost as scary as the idea of spending the rest of your life talking with a voicebox held to your throat because your throat was riddled with cancer. Seems like those scary ads are really working for us, huh?
They're saying 600,000 kids in middle school and 3 million high school students are already puffing on some cancer sticks. Middle school? That deserves another WTF, don't you think? And if you think it's a passing phase, sorry Charlie, but the study claims approximately 3 out of 4 high school smokers continue to smoke well into adulthood.
But allow me to snort in the general direction of the Surgeon General's grand plans for video challenges and guides full of "practical information" to end this awful epidemic. It's an awfully cute idea, completely deserving of a nice pat on the head like Granny use to give you. Maybe even a chuck under the chin?
But if terrifying the pants off of our kids for the last umpteen years has actually resulted in the number of young smokers climbing, I'm going to go ahead and say the "practical information" is going to do a whole lot of nothing. I've got some better ideas that might actually make these kids listen up:
1. Make Your Kid Smoke a Whole Pack of Ciggies. All at once. And none of this filtered, light crap. I'm talking some hardcore, make 'em cough until they're hoarse and want to puke Camels. Get 'em good and "addicted."
2. Serve Their Sugary Smack-o-Puffs With Acetone (Nail Polish Remover) and Ammonia for the Rest of the Week Instead of Milk. Hey, that's what they're ingesting when they puff on a typical cigarette, why wouldn't they want to eat that crap stuff?
3. Set Them Up in an Old Junker With a Hose From the Tailpipe Snaked Through the Back Window. What, that sounds like a horrific suicide method by carbon monoxide poisoning? Funny, cigarettes are full of the stuff ...
4. Tar and Feather Them. The sooner they get used to that sticky stuff, the better, if they intend to be a real smoker. They'll be ingesting one full cup of tar every year as long as they puff.
Come on, people, let's stop being all nicey nice with our kids. It's not WORKING!
What have you done to keep your kids from the cancer sticks?
Image via CDC
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