Regarding smoking, how long have we taught kids "not to smoke?"

I'm wondering because I noticed an article about a case that's been going through the courts for over a decade http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jGMPRJcOC-EppRRYaSQlu8DKcP-QD9GKAUQO2

I'm near 30 now, and both my parents say it was ingrained in their heads not to smoke nearly as much as it was ingrained in my generation's head. So my question is, how do we still have people suing because tobacco got them sick? Didn't they have the same chance to say no like my parents did, and chose not to? Or am I off on my timelines here? Certainly in my generation, there is virtually noone that can say the anti-smoking messages weren't everywhere.
At any point will we be able to say, after this date, anyone who started smoking had plenty of warnings that they shouldn't have and still chose to do so, and must face the consequences of their personal choices?

in the late 50's and early 60's. I wasn't allowed candy cigarettes, either.

After that, well, there' chemistry going on that's a little tough to beat.

They probably wouldnt try to sue if we had universal health care like the rest of the world.

they have constantly been counteracted by either a) advertising by the tobacco companies (which either downplayed or ignored the dangers of smoking) b) propaganda ads by tobacco companies framing issues about the dangers of smoking as a "controversy" on which opinions could legitimately differ, rather than as scientific fact (sound familiar? climate change, global warming, cough cough) or c) both.

So, for every antismoking message that's hit the public for the past 40-odd years, there have been at least an equivalent amount of messages from tobacco companies either urging the public to ignore the dangers of smoking or claiming that there was "no proof" they really existed. It's only very recently that the tobacco companies have been forced to change their tune, and even now it's not as if they are completely forbidden to advertise their products. After all, despite everything we now know about them, they are still legal.

Edited to add one more thing: Since when has telling kids NOT to do something resulted in all of them choosing to NOT do something? Especially when they receive messages from other parts of their society telling them that doing that same thing is adult, sophisticated and will make them look glamorous/tough/whatever they want to look like? Oh yeah, and it'll keep their appetite down, too!

For example, I'd love to see a show of hands on DU from everybody who never tried marijuana because they were told as a kid "Don't." :rofl:

But it's also true that I am at LEAST the second generation that has been hit pretty hard with anti-smoking messages. So many of the kids who decided to smoke in junior high/high school were troublemakers/jerks anyways, and now we're watching them become millionaires? (and yes, I know that they gave up their health for it).

Not as long as we've been teaching them to smoke.

for that class action lawsuit in Florida many years ago. She said they called them "coffin nails" in the late 1920s when she started to smoke. She felt she'd done it to herself.

Other people didn't feel that way, people who started and felt lulled into a sense of invulnerability by all those "Doctors prefer Brand Whatever" adverts all over the place. People who started before 1964 or so might have a point.

Anyone who started after 1964 has been adequately warned, IMO, that there are very serious and usually deadly consequences to smoking. At some point, being ornery overcomes good sense and that usually happens in one's teens. Restricting advertising and sales to kids is sensible. Pursuing lawsuits if one ignored all the warnings and bought, bummed or stole enough cigarettes to get addicted is not sensible.

I doubt there is one date you can point to and say everybody who started after that date is disqualified from suing. However, after 1964, they knew. They had to know. They were just ornery.

If they are still alive and continue to smoke, well, you buys your ticket, you takes your ride. I have no sympathy for fhsm.

and the messages weren't that mixed. All "official" looking messages, through Astroturf articles and paid advertisements, were pro smoking. Only smokers themselves, disgusted with the habit, tried to tell the truth about it and the message got lost more often than not.

After 1964 the official message changed sharply, although it would take years to get the cigarette companies to stop pushing their product to kids.