French Anti-smoking Ads Draw Controversy

“Smoking means being a slave to tobacco” is the tagline of the latest anti-smoking campaign coming out of France.

Well, that's all fine and good, but the posters that have been circulated to spread that message are causing a bit of a media firestorm.

The three ads show teenagers on their knees with cigarettes between their lips, their faces at a man's waist, looking submissively into his eyes.

The head of the Non-Smoker' Rights Association, Remi Parola, says the ads were a necessary step to reaching out to the youth demographic:

“We noticed that the traditional anti-smoking campaigns no longer got across amongst the youth. We thus had to use another way in order to raise awareness…We were surprised by the extent of the media buzz. But it's above all a message of public health that got across.”

What do you think?