With my X-ray vision, I can see the harm cigarettes do inside young bodies.

[davywavy]

When I was little, every week when I got my pocket money I'd trot off to the corner shop with a coin in my clammy hand to buy some of the additive-packed sweets which were freely available in the 70's. A personal favourite were "Superman" brand sweet cigarettes; little sticks of candy with coloured tips with which you could pretend you were actually smoking, just like Superman. Or something.
Of course, one day someone decided that using Superman on kiddie ciggies was poor branding, especially after he went on record as never saying yes to a cigarette, and so the line was dropped, and sweet cigarettes as a concept went shortly afterwards. Whether or not sweet cigarettes were a gateway drug into actual smoking is another matter, though - when I was about seven I stole a ciggie from someone and it was absolutely revolting, nothing like what the sweeties had promised.

I was thinking about this at breakfast this morning, as I munched contemplatively on my cornflakes. Or rather, I was thinking about alcopops. The thing about booze is that when you're a kid, it tastes pretty vile and then one day as you grow up your tastes change and it becomes yummy instead. At least this is true of traditional forms of booze - beer, wine and spirits. Alcopops throw this out by effectively making booze taste yummy to kids. By adding flavourless grain alcohol from distillate to highly sugared sweet drinks like orange squash or Irn Bru, alcohol suddenly becomes much more acceptable to the juvenile palate.
Of course, the booze companies say that that's not the point at all, but name me anyone who actually believes them and I'll name you someone with an IQ lower than room temperature.

Some would say that the rise in teenage binge drinking which can easily be plotted against a graph of alcopop sales is a bad thing. Me? I just see a marketing opporunity. As society is happy to overlook the development of brands whose purpose to ease kids into drinking, I can't help but feel that the time is about right to start developing the 'Kiddiecig' childrens smoking brand. I'm sure modern technology can invent a form of tobacco which is acceptable to the younger palate and lungs and if child-friendly booze branding is given a nod and a wink by an understanding society, why not ciggies?
I'll be looking for investors. Any takers?

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

You can still buy sweet cigarettes, you know. They're just called candy sticks these days. It's exactly the same product, though.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Really?

I know what my niece is getting for Christmas then.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

You can get them in packs of Six boxes. We have them at work in Spidermen, Looney Tunes, and Barbie varieties.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I suppose the Barbie ones are to get little girls into the idea of smoking later in life to try and keep a physique like hers, right?

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

And made of sugar to ensure it never actually happens...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's just a reinforcement loop - "I'm fat, I'm must smoke to look like barbie! I'm fatter, I must smoke more! oh noes! Even more!"

Wow, it's like a licence to print money.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

* nodnod *

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I remember chocolate cigarettes which were only good for pretending to smoke because the chocolate in them was disgustingly cheap, even for my less refined tastes then.

[sea-cucumber.livejournal.com]

The chocolate ones were really horrid :)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

They were sort of chewy, weren't they?

[sea-cucumber.livejournal.com]

yes, and they tasted probably as bad as if you ate a real cigarette :)
icky fake chocolate!

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps my 'Junior Crack' brand would fit your portfolio?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Nah, next on the list is guns. "Start 'em young with junior gatling".
If you don't teach kids gun safety when they're little, they'll never learn it when they're older, you know.

[duncanneko.livejournal.com]

I should scan you the catalogue I got with my last airsoft (BB) gun then. It's full of happy pre-teens toting very expensive electric BB guns (and lots of Japanese writing).

I love my hobbies.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

And very funny warning icons. :o)

[(Anonymous)]

Do they sell prams aimed at the 12-14 years market?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Well I'd still rather drink a 50% mix of vodka and sugar than red wine or ale.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You're just channeling your inner 12 year old binge drinker.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

It's the new way to experience a second childhood.
I just need a hoodie and an ASBO and I'll be set.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the No 2 haircut. ;o)

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

That plus a visit to JJB and I'm finished!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

In more ways than one.

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

The sad fact is that most people dont like alcohol and its taste and peer pressure denotes that you spend some part of your adolecense forcing yourself to get used to the vile taste of alcohol in some rite of passage into becoming an alcoholic.

Alcopops are designed to cirumvent this and allow those of more refined pallates to also become alcoholics and increase the market for the drinks industry.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

most people dont like alcohol and its taste

You blaspheme!

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I remember distinctly spending a few months hating lager and its vile acidic taste, and the ugly fartlike consistency of bitter as well...

Now I have ruined my taste buds enough to enjoy such things. Even enjoy in my own pervese way the many varied forms of the delectible poison.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Your farts are the same consistency as Bitter?

That certainly explains a lot.

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

Well think about that next time you send me for a round, you never know what your getting in your glass.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Would certainly question things if you bought a round. I'd check my pint for Polonium 210 for starters.

[gwaunquest.livejournal.com]

the ciggie thing wont work. Alcohol is still drug of choice for most of us and little is done to discourage heavy drinking. Smoking however is the new leprosy and no decent self respecting citizen will allow you to light up this side of pluto. Tobacco in itself is not the culprit though. The railroading of smokers onto the pavement and thence to obscurity is down to insurance premiums. Since smoking was the biggest cause of accidental fires banning it cuts your premium. Not until a financial institution feels the cost of teenage boozers in its own pocket will anything be done to stop it.