Public Health England, which is funding a £500,000 Dry January ad campaign by Alcohol Concern, is also targetting smokers.
The government body, whose head of tobacco control is Martin Dockrell, formerly of ASH, is today launching a new anti-smoking campaign.
It's called 'Stop the rot' and the press release reads:
Stop the rot: New campaign highlights how cigarettes 'rot' the body from the inside
Research reveals that poisons in tobacco smoke break down the body's key systems, damaging bones, muscles, brain, teeth and eyesSmokers turning to roll-ups, wrongly convinced they are less harmful New anti-smoking campaign shows a roll-up full of rotting tissue to highlight the dangers.
Today, Public Health England launches a powerful new campaign to highlight how smoking damages the body and causes a slow and steady decline in a process akin to rotting. The campaign launches as a new expert review commissioned by Public Health England highlights the multiple impacts that toxic ingredients in cigarettes can have on your body.
There follows a long list of how smoking allegedly damages bones and muscles, causes injuries to heal more slowly and reduces the impact of treatment. According to PHE it also affects the brain and teeth, damages sight and increases the risk of age-related cataracts.
Hand rolled tobacco (which is favoured by an increasing number of smokers as a direct result of the government's tobacco taxation policy) is singled out for special attention:
The campaign also tackles common misconceptions around hand-rolled tobacco, or roll-ups. Use of roll-ups has increased significantly. In 1990, 18% of male smokers and 2% of female smokers said they smoked mainly hand-rolled cigarettes but by 2013 this had risen to 40% for men and 23% for women. New figures show that half of smokers (49%) who only smoke roll-ups wrongly believe they are less harmful than manufactured cigarettes. In fact, hand-rolled cigarettes are at least as hazardous as any other type of cigarette.
Needless to say there's a comment from our old friend Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales:
"Whilst many smokers know the damage cigarettes do to their hearts and lungs, they are much less likely to be aware of how harmful smoking is to the body - essentially 'rotting' it from the inside out, and roll-ups are no exception.
According to PHE:
Digital and print billboards will feature a roll-up cigarette full of decaying tissue, whilst an online viral will see a father casually rolling up a cigarette formed of rotting human flesh - all bringing to life the fact that: 'every cigarette rots you from the inside out'. This will be joined by the 'Mutations' and 'Toxic Cycle' adverts used in previous campaigns. These campaigns have helped smoking rates in England fall to an all time low this year of 18.4% and Public Health England will be continuing to help any smoker wishing to make a quit attempt in 2015 with a range of free and proven support tools.
Believe it or not that's an edited version of a press release that seems to pride itself on hyperbole.
I tried to keep Forest's response as short as possible:
Forest slams PHE's "poisonous" anti-smoking campaign
The smokers' group Forest has described Public Health England's new anti-smoking campaign as "rotten", "poisonous" and an "abuse of public money".
According to PHE, "research reveals that poisons in tobacco smoke break down the body's key systems, damaging bones, muscles, brain, teeth and eyes".
Simon Clark, director of Forest, said: "There can't be a sane adult in the United Kingdom who isn't well aware of the health risks of smoking.
"What's really poisonous is the way public health campaigners are constantly trying to scare and harass people with exaggerated claims and dubious statistics.
"Campaigns like this are an abuse of public money. Education has been replaced by shrill scaremongering that is often counter-productive because it's human nature to switch off when you're being nagged or shouted at on an almost daily basis.
"This is real life not a Hammer Horror film. If Public Health England wants to be effective they should engage directly with consumers, not try to scare them with rotten campaigns such as this."
I'll keep an eye on media coverage but as I write I have a feeling that warning fatigue may have set in.
One thing's for sure. What we've seen since Christmas is a concerted, coordinated campaign on several fronts - food, drink and now tobacco.
And the target? You and me (aka the consumer).
Increasingly bodies such as PHE will stop at nothing until smoking and even drinking are denormalised.
Public health, rotten to the core.
Update: The BBC has the story here (Smoking rot highlighted in campaign). The original report had no balancing comment, despite the fact that we sent them our press release yesterday morning. I have just spoken to the news desk and it should be updated shortly.
The Mail also has a report here (with a quote from Forest):
Finally (and somewhat surprisingly), the Independent highlights our reaction in its headline here:
Anti-smoking adverts accused of 'scaremongering'
Update: The BBC has now updated its report to include a brief comment from me. Pity we had to phone their news desk and point out how one-sided the original report was.