There is no group of people that public health has stigmatized more than smokers. For decades they have produced materials that shame & blame smokers, tell them they are stupid, are going to die painful deaths, it's their fault they got cancer. It is astonishing. 
Here is a video from the DYSDOH "Cigarettes are eating you alive." From the CDC youtube.com/user/NYSDOH Another from the CDC They are lurid, disrespectful, sickening.
Public health promotes and supports graphic, disgusting, vomitous photos on cigarette packages that show a profound lack of empathy for smokers. And the stomach-turning photos don't convince smokers to quit!
And it's curious because with other groups of people with health problems, public health agencies have actively sought to challenge & eliminate stigma - for example, people who have HIV and mental health diagnoses.
I testified at a hearing today on vaping and a person from the public health community bemoaned that "vaping was not stigmatized like smoking."
And that is the new goal of public health - to demonize and stigmatize people who vape nicotine, even though it's 95% safer than smoking & will save millions of smokers lives. Public health agencies categorically reject tobacco harm reduction.
