No more, on packs of cigarettes,
Just words about how they can kill.
To graphically display their threats
The FDA plans sheer ill will
Against tobacco’s industry—
Instead of messages, art work.
A smoking tracheotomy
Beneath the chin of some poor jerk,
For instance, ought to make one shrink
And not leave room for kids to think.
Each day four thousand of them start
Each day a thousand end up hooked.
How smokers, then, this life depart,
In images (though overcooked)
Might give them reason they should quit,
Like ravaged lungs and stitched-up chest,
And most compelling,
I submit, A man in cardiac arrest.
Close second, babe in arms and smoke,
And thanks to mom, about to choke.
The U.S. isn’t first to use
Deterrents such as these to warn:
Carcinogens in smoke abuse
Like any toxicant wind-born.
The irony for me, besides,
Is no lands in the world consent
To retail sale of pesticides
For leisure-time experiment,
Which makes the sale of nicotine
Both homicidal and obscene.
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