Cadavers On Cigarette Packages?

Cigarettes can kill and now the Federal Drug Administration is making that graphically clear.

The FDA is forcing cigarette manufacturers to make warning labels bigger and include color images illustrating how deadly so-called “cancer sticks” can be.

Tobacco use is responsible for nearly one in five deaths in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.

But it also says that smoking is the most preventable cause of death in the world.

So, the question is: will the government’s new law on labels curb smoking?

“Nah,” said Alex Acevedo, 18, who has smoked cigarettes for more than seven years. “I already know what it does.”

Really?

So, a warning label saying cigarettes cause cancer, or that tobacco smoke can harm your children wouldn’t force you to think twice about kicking the habit?

“If you do anything in moderation it’s fine,” said Jack Bruning, co-owner of Palm Desert Tobacco.

How about a photo of a cadaver?

Shots of a toe-tag? Or, smoke billowing from a man’s throat?

“When I saw them I thought it was a very very good idea because I think if I would have seen it at a younger age, when I occasionally smoked, I think it probably would have stopped me,” said Annette Hamrick, a resident of Palm Desert who smoked in her teens.

Hamrick eventually quit and believes young people will be turned off by the images and think twice about smoking.

“Before, it was all glamorous and you’d see, you know, pretty girls smoking on, you know, the ads,” said Hamrick. “I think seeing that is just the reality of what cigarette smoking can do to you.”

The FDA unveiled 36 warning labels Wednesday that it may possibly enforce cigarette manufactures to place on cartons.

The labels are required to appear in the upper portion of the front and rear panels of each cigarette package.

They must also comprise at least the top 50 percent of the box.

“My grandfather used to say, ‘If God wanted you to smoke, he would have made your nose upside down like a chimney,'” said Dr. Amy Austin. “I mean, people know that it can’t be positive to smoke a cigarette.”

Bruning agrees with Austin.

“They’ve done it in Canada for years and years and years,” he said. “I don’t sell many American cigarettes here, but I sell tons of Canadian cigarettes here to the Canadians that come and visit us. So, it hasn’t deterred them.”

Austin is a psychotherapist and has practiced in the desert for more than 10 years.

She specializes in addictions.

Austin says addicts have to come to terms with their addiction on their own.

Nicotine dependence provides a physiological need that can’t be broken by an image.

Smokers at the beginning of their habit might think twice before taking a puff, but for longtime smokers, Austin said, “They don’t care. They absolutely don’t care if there is an open chest (or that) they were smoking through a tube in their throat. It wouldn’t matter.”

“They’re a little gross,” said Acevedo. “But they show worse stuff in school. “So, no, its not going to be stopping me.”

The FDA will accept public comments on the proposed labels until January.

It will then narrow the choices down to nine images in June.

Manufactures will then be required to used those labels on all U.S. cigarettes by Oct. 22, 2012.