After seeing the viral YouTube video of a two-year-old Indonesian boy who chain smoked 40 cigarettes a day, Belgian photographer Frieke got an idea for this photo series titled Smoking Kids.

Tom Tack of I Love Belgium wrote:

Titled “The beauty of an ugly addiction”, photographer Frieke Janssens confronts viewers with questions about the general smoking ban introduced in Belgium some months ago. Surrealistic, melancholic and theatrical but especially controversial pictures of smoking kids are used to visualise the contradiction of the unhealthy cigarette and the immense attraction of smoking.

The children, aged four to nine, are shameless posing while enjoying their cigarette or cigarillo. So why kids? By portraying adults as children all the attention went to the smoking. An adult would draw to much attention to the portrayed person. Thus these portraits evoke question such as: is the smoking ban the right way to get rid of an absurd addiction and are smokers treated like little kids who can’t make the difference between good and bad?

Lest you think they're clever photoshoppery, here's the behind the scenes video clip of the photo shoot:

But parents, relax! The cigarettes aren't real. They're made out of cheese (I didn't know that you can get cheese to smoke like that!).

Links: Smoking Kids at I Love Belgium - Thanks Tom! | More photos at The Black Harbor | Frieke Janssens Photography on Facebook

Have you seen a tiger skin rug made out of half a million sticks of cigarettes? Chinese artist Xu Bing created this massive art installation for his Tobacco Project series: Link

Kunst is known as a graffiti and stencil artist, but he adopted a new medium in order to create this portrait of French musician Serge Gainsbourg. Kunst is a big fan of the singer, so he spent three years collecting used cigarette filters to create this amazing – and kind of disgusting – portrait of Gainsbourg.

Overall, there are 20,394 cigarette filters making up the legendary singer’s face. He was famously fond of smoking and drinking, making the choice of unusual medium completely logical. But besides fitting the subject, the medium is an ingenious way to clean up the streets in a small way. A cigarette butt portrait would be perfect for an environmentally-themed piece of art.

WebEcoist has the pics: Link | More at Oddity Central

Russia’s finance minister has urged his countrymen and women to support the country – by drinking and smoking more.

Alexei Kudrin called for increased consumption of tobacco and alcohol in a bid to boost the state’s revenues, reports Metro.

"If you smoke a pack of cigarettes, that means you are giving more to help solve social problems," commented Kudrin.

"People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state."

Link

Behold, the Smoking Machine (heck, it even litters!): Link [embedded YouTube clip]

I know that Chinese people like to smoke cigarettes, but just how much they like to smoke is pretty astounding to learn: over 2 trillion sticks of cigarettes a year! That’s more than 1,500 cigs for every man, woman and child there!

China has 300 million smokers (that’s about the entire population of the United States, by the way). It’s been estimated that 60% to 75% of all Chinese men smoke, puffing an average of 15 cigarettes per day.

In 2001, a study published in the British Medical Journal tracked the rising death toll from smoking and extrapolated a particularly chilling statistics:

"Two-thirds of all the young men in China, but, as yet, few of the young women, become smokers. Half the smokers who persist will eventually be killed by their habit," said Oxford University epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto, who led the study.

"On present smoking patterns, about one-third of all the young men in China will eventually be killed by tobacco." (Source)

Yet, tobacco continues to be a booming industry there, growing at a brisk 10% rate year after year.

A spokesman for Clas Mild cigarettes, the brand Mr Susanto had been smoking, said there were no plans for a recall.

“We are communicating with the police and still waiting on the forensic laboratory tests,” Iwan Sulistyo told the Jakarta Globe.

Susanto accepted the settlement, and said he was planning to give up smoking anyway. Link -Thanks actor212!

Kids and adults alike collect PEZ dispensers to store the beloved candies. But PEZ wasn’t always so fruity. It was developed as a peppermint candy more than 70 years ago in Vienna and marketed as a cigarette substitute. (In fact, the name PEZ was derived from the German word for peppermint: PfeffErminZ). Although PEZ has come a long way from its anti-smoking roots, it’s still a popular treat. Today, more than 3 billion PEZ candies are consumed annually in the U.S.

Link

Forget the namby-pamby cigarette warning label we have here in the United States. Here's a very graphic warning label from cartons of Malaysian clove cigarettes.

Alas, even these warning labels do not have much effect on smokers. From World Health Organization's Regional Office for the Western Pacific's smoking statistics:

- About half of all Malaysian men smoke.
- Every day about 50 teenagers below the age of 18 start smoking
- Studies show about 30% of adolescent boys (aged 12 to 18) smoke.
- Smoking among female teens is rising. According to two studies on teens conducted in 1996 and 1999, the numbers of female teens smoking rose from 4.8% to 8%. Overall, the 1999 study found nearly one in five teens smokes.
- Some studies have shown that lung cancer is rising at a rate of 17% a year.
- Although there are restrictions on advertising, tobacco companies have found ways to bypass these laws through using brand names and remain the top advertisers. Heavily advertised products include the Benson and Hedges bistro, Dunhill accessories, Marlboro clothing, Kent Horizon Tours and Salem Cool Planet concerts.
- Malaysia has been dubbed the "indirect advertising capital" of the world. Some of the tobacco industry's most blatant efforts to target young people can be seen here.
- Spending on tobacco advertising is extremely high. In 1997, the industry spent about $90 million, while in the year 2000, two tobacco firms alone reportedly spent more than US$40 million.

TYWKIWDBI has the larger pic: Link (as you'd imagine, the pictures are quite graphic - you've been warned)