Whether you smoke or not, you have seen these warning labels on cigarette packs like: It Kills… Causes Cancer… Causes Impotence… and stuff like that.
And it’s all true.
Decades of research leave no room for doubt – smoking is terrible for your health.
That’s why governments around the world have tried to fight nicotine addiction. They banned tobacco ads and forced the Tobacco corporations to display gory warnings in every pack.
Yet, that doesn’t seem to make a dent.
You know, I remember going out for coffee with my friends; and we were all smokers; and when someone had to go to the store to buy cigarettes, we would be like, “Hey be careful that you don’t buy those packs that cause impotence; grab the ones with premature death.”
To us, these warnings were a joke.
To others are probably just some letters and pictures in a box.
But there’s something twisted going on here…
These warnings are not only useless but they might make people smoke even more.
Let’s go back to 2004, when Martin Lindstrom, a marketing consultant for major corporations, conducted…
The largest neuromarketing experiment ever
This experiment was funded by 7 corporations, cost about $7 Million, and lasted 3 years. Their goal was to uncover how our brain responds to certain marketing strategies.
At the heart of this study were smokers.
In interviews before the experiment, they were asked a simple question: Do the warnings on cigarette packs make you smoke less?
Most of them said yes.
But self-reporting can be unreliable so they went deeper.
They used an fMRI machine to measure the smokers’ brain activity while showing them a slideshow of graphic warnings.
To oversimplify it, here’s how the fMRI machine works:
When you think, feel, or do something, certain parts of your brain work harder, and more blood flows to those areas. The fMRI can detect these changes in blood flow and figure out which parts of the brain are the most active. In this case, they wanted to see which parts of the brain were the most active when looking at the warning labels.
Now, the results were shocking, to say the least.
All those gory warning labels, designed to terrify smokers into quitting did not suppress their cravings.
And it gets worse…
For these warnings to work, they need to affect the brain areas that are connected to rational decision-making, right?
But in this study, those areas didn’t show increased activity. Instead, it stimulated Nucleus Accumbens, also known as the craving center of the brain.
This area lights up whenever we desire something whether it’s food, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, sex, etc. The more it’s stimulated, the stronger the craving becomes.
The researchers concluded that the billions spent by governments around the world on anti-smoking campaigns didn’t just fail – It became a killer marketing tool for the Tobacco Industry.
Now, we have to say that this study was not made publicly available, meaning it was not analyzed by other researchers.
This might be because their findings weren’t strong enough or they wanted to protect their marketing strategies.
Anyway, their main argument was that the warning labels stimulate the nucleus accumbens so it increases their cravings.
But nucleus accumbens also lights up when we are worried or scared and it doesn’t necessarily mean they are craving cigarettes. And this is a flaw in their argument.
However, this second scenario also doesn’t work well for smokers.
The reason is that every single smoker has created the association in their mind that… When stressed = Smoke a cigarette
So, in either case, instead of discouraging smoking, these labels seemed to reinforce the urge to smoke.
But why does this happen? What’s going on here?
The Trap of Nicotine Addiction
Two primary factors reinforce the urge to smoke.
#1 Fear and Stress
These labels are designed to trigger strong emotions, and for a good reason, right? They emphasize the dangers of smoking in graphic ways hoping to convince you to quit, or at least consider quitting.
The thing is that as a smoker you are well aware of the dangers, you learn about it in school, you hear it on media, and it’s slapped in your face every time you buy a pack…
But you don’t have a clear solution on how to actually quit.
They say to call this health line or consult with your doctor. Well, my doctor is a smoker and maybe yours is too, so what can you do?
Maybe you don’t know that there are rehab centers that help you quit or maybe there are none in your country or close to you.
Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom.
Researchers have studied addiction for decades and have figured out practical ways to overcome even the toughest addictions.
And you know, there are people who get clean from alcohol, cocaine, heroin, or benzos and can live a normal life. By comparison, quitting nicotine should be much simpler.
So, the problem isn’t that solutions don’t exist—they do.
It’s just that they’re not clear. Or accessible.
Especially to the average person.
And that’s where things fall apart.
Smokers see these warning labels every fucking day but they don’t know how to quit or maybe they don’t even want to. That’s also an option.
This creates a massive gap in your mind – knowing how dangerous it is and continuing to smoke anyway.
That creates an internal conflict that constantly gives you stress and anxiety.
To cope with that tension, you’ll rationalize it.
You will be like, “It won’t happen to me.” or “My grandpa smoked all his life and lived to 80.”
These rationalizations will provide temporary relief but no matter how much you try; you’ll be reminded of the internal conflict and this will make you feel more stressed and anxious.
It’s like putting a band-aid on a wound that keeps bleeding.
So the first reason why these warning labels reinforce the urge to smoke is because they are a constant reminder of your inability or the lack of desire to prevent a potential future threat to your health.
#2 Conditioning
Every smoker has this core belief that it helps them relieve stress or boredom.
The harsh truth is that… it’s an illusion.
What’s really happening is this:
Once you finish the cigarette, the nicotine withdrawal kicks in, and makes you feel irritated… like something is missing.
On top of that, you have the stress from everyday life—work, relationships, bills… and stress piles up… what do you do to feel better?
Yep, you light a cigarette.
Your body gets its nicotine fix, and for a moment, you feel relief.
That’s why we associate cigarettes with feeling relaxed, and calm.
But the moment you burn the cigarette, the withdrawal kicks in again, making you irritated and craving the next fix.
So basically, nicotine creates the problem and then fixes the problem temporarily. It’s like wearing tight shoes just for the sweet relief you feel when you take them off.
And since you repeat this cycle multiple times a day, the belief that “smoking helps me stay calm” gets reinforced, over and over again.
Look, I know this firsthand. I was addicted to nicotine for 8 years and for the better part of it, I smoked about 2 packs every day. Sometimes more sometimes less.
Now, if smoking really reduces stress, I should’ve been as calm as a monk, right? But I wasn’t.
In fact, I was constantly on edge.
It took me such a long time to understand that smoking doesn’t actually relieve stress or boredom.
When that realization really settled in my mind, that’s when I started considering quitting and then eventually I quit and never looked back.
All right, since the biggest weapon against tobacco is one of their greatest assets, does it mean that we cannot win… that the war against smoking is…
A Lost Cause!
Tobacco has won primarily because they have this scary ability to adapt.
To circumvent the advertising ban they invested in subliminal marketing, sponsored F1 cars, crafted product placements in every shop, and placed their cigarettes in the hands of our favorite movie characters.
Let’s stop here for a moment…
How many times you have seen the main character who’s in a critical moment lighting a cigarette? Or sometimes the fact that the character smokes is so fitting that we can’t imagine him/her not being a smoker.
Now imagine looking at this as a kid.
How hard it is to believe that smoking is cool.
It’s not, right?
The irony is that once you become a smoker it doesn’t take long to regret it. Most smokers eventually say, “I wish I never started.”
Another crucial reason why Tobacco has won is the obvious one… it sells a highly addictive product.
Once they get someone hooked, they don’t need to convince them to keep smoking because it’s the addiction that does the job for them.
At the same time, their product kills people.
Millions of smokers die every year.
So the next logical step for their business is to recruit new customers right?
However, stealing customers from competitors is very difficult. I mean if you smoke let’s say Marlboro you don’t really switch to Lucky Strikes because the taste and feel are different and it takes time to get used to it.
Most smokers stick to their preferred brand for life.
Alright, since their customers are dying in war-like numbers and cannot steal much from their competitors… Where can they find new customers?
Well, they target children.
They’re gullible, are not properly protected from subtle advertising, and can become loyal customers for many, many years.
Think about it.
If they recruit someone at the age of 16 who smokes till the age of 60 and that’s only because they are forced to quit for health reasons… this person will have spent over $100,000 on cigarettes.
That’s why they’ll do anything to get them hooked early.
They’ll place cigarette shelves at children’s eye level, sell mint-flavored cigarettes, and embed smoking in cartoons or popular media.
Considering everything we have talked about so far, I think the best bet for a government is to focus all of its efforts on preventing people from getting addicted in the first place.
But just like Tobacco operates in a subtle way, almost in the shadows… the governments should do the same.
They must avoid making these huge announcements that they are launching a new anti-smoking campaign that is going to solve this problem once and for all and stuff like that.
Because people resist attempts to persuade them to do something, especially when it’s coming from the government. It’s that rebellious spirit coming out like “If I want to smoke, it’s my right to do so, so fuck off.”
Instead, they should be precise, almost surgically in cutting off the sources of propaganda that sell kids the illusion that smoking is cool or relieves boredom and stress.
What about as an individual?
What can I do to quit smoking?
Well, I’m no health expert but as I mentioned earlier I started considering quitting then quit when I understood how nicotine addiction actually works… When I understood the illusions or mental chains that were holding me back.
Now, what helped me gain those valuable insights is the book: Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking
So I would highly recommend reading it.
