By Paige Nordeen, Senior Staff Columnist

Cancer, lung disease, stroke, emphysema. Typically, any person would be able to connect these words to one culprit: Cigarettes. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration believes Americans are too uninformed to understand smoking cigarettes is a harmful habit. To further assist citizens in making the healthy choice not to smoke, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act has prompted a new law to include large graphic images and macabre writing on cigarette packages. Effective on June 22 next year, the images will cover 50 percent of the cigarette pack and portray a series of nine graphic photos illustrating the correlation of cigarette smoking and health related problems, according to fda.gov.

I must admit, I was originally quite fond of this educational promotion and proud of the FDA for stepping up against the big bad cigarette companies. However, my opinion soon took a turn after I perused the FDA site to get a better look at what these images actually entail. Some of my favorites include a photo of a toe-tagged man in a morgue, a gentleman smoking out of his tracheotomy tube and a pale-faced, emaciated woman dying from cancer in her hospital bed.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that smoking is harmful, but ultimately, the choice to engage in the habit is the decision of the individual. For the past several decades, cigarettes and their loyal users have been the focus of public scorn. Generally speaking, people who smoke them are socially ostracized. This shouldn’t give the FDA reason to depict such horrific and repulsive images on packages of cigarettes. With this logic, perhaps we should apply the tactic to everything unhealthy and dangerous. Imagine a picture of a gastric bypass surgery or the belly of an obese man on the cover of a McDonald’s hamburger wrapper. I wonder how the public would react if it saw a photo of a rotten liver or fatal car accident covering 50 percent of a wine bottle.

This shock-and-awe system we’ve developed doesn’t work. Where outrage is expected, we only find further desensitization. As slasher films, hip-hop songs and video games have demonstrated, we are no longer alarmed by graphic depictions.  In fact, we have become numb to them. I believe the simplest measures are often the most effective. The small black and white lettering on the side of cigarette boxes is enough to inform the public it should steer clear.

Understandably, these provocative and downright disturbing advertisements are aimed to deter teenagers from succumbing to their smoking curiosities. And I’m not a bit surprised: “Every day, 4,000 young people try cigarettes for the first time and 1,000 continue to smoke,” according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Sticking a photograph of a dead smoker on the front of a cigarette pack is not the route the FDA should explore. Applying this ideology to other risky activities teenagers are prone to illuminates the obscenity of it all. For instance, teenagers are likely well aware of the dangers of artificial tanning; however, the FDA released studies stating 40 to 60 percent of young girls used a tanning bed within the last year, according to an article by The Associated Press. Regardless, photos of young women dying from melanoma aren’t posted outside of tanning salons, and for good reason.

Risky lifestyle decisions are inevitable; we don’t need the wet blankets at the FDA using grotesque images to get a point across. If it really wanted to hit smokers where it hurts, go for the wallet. I suggest including a small pamphlet illustrating the amount of money that could be saved if one didn’t buy cigarettes daily. Or perhaps enclose the estimated health costs for those who undergo cancer treatments. This advertisement campaign will surely fail; people will find ways around it. Tossing those idiotic cigarette packs in the trash can and throwing the smokes into a fashionable tin might be one way to combat the ridiculous ploy.

—Paige Nordeen is a media studies senior.

—The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.