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Surgeon General warnings
I realize I'm tampering with history here, since the "birth defects" warnings actually came later. The first white rectangles, you may recall, simply stated that smoking was hazardous to your health. Nothing more, nothing less, as if the Surgeon General was a bit afraid of those feisty tobacco companies and what kind of legal maneuvers they might pull if he told his true feelings.
At first - remember? - it was a little strange to see that living contradiction, the joyous couple playing in the leaves while holding their sexually-charged upward-turned cigarettes, with that ominous warning sitting just beneath them. Couldn't they see that stark white Surgeon General rectangle perched just beneath their leaves? What was wrong with them? Kind of a profound statement: remaining blissfully unaware of our own death, even as it shares billboard space with us.
But after awhile it became kind of a value-free statement. The government needed some better marketing, so they punched it up a little bit, with my favorite anti-smoking sentiment of all time: "Smoking now poses serious health risks." Ah! I see! Smoking was bad before, but now, NOW, it's really bad.
"I dunno what's in those newfangled cigarettes, but they are REALLY bad! I dunno if evil aliens came and planted this tobacky or what, but stay away from those things!"
At any rate, this is when the birth defects campaign came in. I apologize if I've caused any confusion.
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