Think of a slogan like "Only the poor still smoke" or "it's what losers do" and how it would impact people. Suddenly you'd be embarrassed of being seen smoking.
This can be a powerful driver. And if it gets people to stop smoking, which is a devastatingly unhealthy habit, well, I'm ok with that.
And I still remember how she offered, just to be hospitable, some watered down fruit juice with like just a whiff of alcohol, and how she pointed to her super cheap cigarettes and said with a voice that was so full of cynicism and despair at the same time, that this was her only pleasure. I still remember that voice, the look her face had at that second, some kind of snarl -- not against me, they were so kind to me.. but against her fate I guess, and/or herself. It's impossible for me to describe, but indelible. Like all that misery, that is mostly pent up and that will follow her into the grave, escaping a bit in a short hiss. There is a German saying, to make a good face in a bad situation, and for just a split second, her face stopped doing that altogether, and I will never forget. God forbid that I do.
None of what I'm writing makes sense to anyone I'm sure, but I so wish I could describe the pang I felt then -- and the pang I felt just now, reading the suggestion that, basically, "they" are beyond help anyway, so let's make advertisements shaming people for smoking, so that those who still have something to lose might fear to be associated with those who don't. Would you also say this in the presence of "the" poor? If I could make one invention, it would be something that swaps the brains of humans around every 5 years, completely randomly. People would sober up rather quickly I'm sure.
A variation on that is that the world where you have no control over who you will be in it is the world that you should strive to create.
And a way to simulate it is social pressure I guess. That's what empathy is for, and why sometimes indignation is "righteous". Though in this case, I didn't mean my post so much as finger pointing, maybe it started with that impulse but I wouldn't want to "use" this anecdote for that, after all it was something that made and makes me deeply ashamed of how lightly I take all my luck and my wealth. In a good but still a bitter way that I insist is necessary. It only feels really bad as long as one isn't actively working on helping in some way, after all.
As long as someone isn't free, we're not free. No man is an island, and all that. I don't mean socialism, as long as everybody has dignity and basic necessities, I don't care if someone has a private space ship; I mean just not trampling on the little and the weak and the unfortunate. An idea that shouldn't just be admired as noble, but implemented thoroughly, while writing tests for it. Upgrade it from warning to error, yesterday preferably.
I'm sure it would eliminate smoking among kids almost entirely; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjsSVCLxcZ4
The "drugs aren't cool" campaign's have never really worked.
Quite aside from which, as I mentioned before, this is already pretty much the attitude, and the natural response to contempt is resentment. I've gotten any number of sidelong looks and smartassed comments from people who seem to find it a trespass upon their persons that I happen to be smoking within their eyeshot, and I can't say it has made me any more inclined to quit than the perceptible effects of maintaining the habit already do.
Or, you know, even more determined than ever to smoke.
Psychology is not that simple.
(Some english guy, don't remember who, described the same reaction when someone like Princess Diana was on TV telling people to "Say no to drugs").
It's just building a social stigma about the use of the product - which happens to be based on facts.
They know they are poor, everyone can see that they are poor, no need to point it out.