Am I the only one thinking how problematic that product is?
I guess 'think of the children' only comes up when governments want to ban end-to-end encryption or ask for ID when viewing porn, but everyone is dandy with addictive products advertisements targeted at children such as the one in the meme, gambling in video games, toy companies exploiting children, and more...
It's an interesting question. I'm not sure what I think.
I would say gambling is more of a child's game which is made bad for adults by making it about too important because of money. Lots of board games could be considered gambling if they used real money, so I'm not against that.
Definitely against banning end to end encryption.
Kids cigarettes - I had them as a child and thought they were cool, but then I also never took up smoking. I tried it once or twice but that's it. Never had any desire to actually do it. IMO it probably depends on how you're raised and your environment. I also watched a bunch of violent movies, but haven't gotten into a real fight yet and not a violent person.
IMO thinking candy cigarettes cause kids to take up smoking seems similar to thinking GTA causes kids to commit crimes.
What it comes down to for me is that we're human beings and have brains. If someone is influenced by candy or games to take up smoking, gambling, and crime, then they are dumb as fuck anyway and their parents and teachers have completely failed them. That's the real problem.
I've never seen a box of these actually marketed as candy cigarettes. They're usually just candy sticks but it's just something that kids always do regardless.
With that said over here there is no branding or marketing allowed on/of cigarettes, period. Nor are they allowed to be on display in any shop. So it's not too surprising that they're also not on candy. Cigarettes look like this here (content warning graphic smoking damage image):
graphic smoking damage image
Meanwhile in America
