Gory TV ad on tar danger aims to shock smokers

A quit-smoking group aims to shock people out of smoking from Sunday by broadcasting a new TV ad of sticky tar trickling over slices of a dead person's lungs.

A scalpel, forceps and rubber gloves complete the medical laboratory-like picture, designed to show how much harmful tar the average smoker's lungs are subjected to each year.

That year's worth - 150ml, the amount from the average smoker's 18 or 19 cigarettes a day - is seen sliding out of a beaker.

Tar is inhaled in tobacco smoke and condenses into a sticky brown substance. In smokers it is the main cause of lung and throat cancer. It can also stain their fingers and teeth.

So-called light or low-tar cigarettes are no protection: people who smoke them inhale just as much tar as those who use regular cigarettes.

Dr Peter Martin, medical adviser to the Quit Group, said tar absorbed by the lungs could cause lung cells to die.

Cigarette smoke paralysed or destroyed the fine hairs that lined the upper airways and helped to protect against infection. When the hairs were damaged, tar could go deeper into the lungs, doing even more damage.

He said the Quit Group was running the new campaign because although the proportion of adults who smoke had declined to 23 per cent, that figure was high in the Western world: Australia's rate was 19 per cent and Sweden's 16.

"We feel it's important that we keep before the public the issues relating to the harmful effects of smoking. Otherwise people become complacent."

He said adverts produced a big increase in the number of people calling the Quitline.