Cigarette warning labels

I've notice something from the amount of time I spend at bus stops -- Germans smoke a lot.

In fact, they smoke about 60% more than the average Americans on a per capita basis. According to the Wikipedia page, the average American adult smokes a little over 1,000 cigarettes per year, or bit less than three cigarettes per day. The average German smokes almost 1,600 per year.

This is surprising to me, because German cigarette labels are downright scary. On the left is a woman coughing up blood. Others show amputees, corpses, shriveled, blackened lungs, and people who've had tracheotomies.

I think I understand the thought process -- people understand the risks on a cognitive level, but not on a personal level. But it's alarming to see so many people making bad decisions for their health when it's so forthrightly publicized.