Australian children of the 80s and 90s were exposed to graphic, hard-hitting anti-smoking advertisements on television depicting the physical consequences of tobacco use.
At the time, the confronting campaigns were successful in shifting public opinion and, as a result, tobacco smoking rates have more than halved in the past two decades alone.
But Australia is now facing another public health threat impacting a new generation – vaping.
Federal and state governments will spend more than $364 million in the next few years on programs to reduce vaping and smoking.
But data shows vaping among teenagers is continuing to rapidly rise.
Here’s a look at why the messaging around the risks of vaping still might not be hitting home with many young Australians.
In 1979, an advert showing a sponge being wrung out, dripping with liquid tar premiered on Australian TV.
The voiceover said: “If you could wring out the cancer-producing tar that goes into the lungs of a smoker every year, this is how much you’d get. It’s enough to make you sick”.
Michelle Jongenelis, an associate professor in psychological sciences at the University of Melbourne, conducted a study into the perceptions of e-cigarettes by interviewing a number of focus groups of adolescents and young people.
She said despite the fact that none of the participants were even alive when the sponge ad aired, the majority could still recall it.
“They still talked about how important this ad was and how it still impacts their decision not to smoke,” she said.
Dr Jongenelis said the inception of powerful anti-smoking advertising was imperative to reducing smoking to the low rates that exist today.
“At the time, we had a high prevalence rate of smoking, much more than we do now,” she said.
“These campaigns were designed to make people more aware of the harms of smoking because back then, we didn’t really know as much of the evidence was starting to emerge.”
(abc.net.au)
