Archive for the ‘Cigarette package’ Category

Ghastly images soon on UAE cigarette packs

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Cigarette packs in the UAE will soon carry ghastly images, such as an unborn baby inhaling smoke from its mom and a snake coiled around a shisha, to deter smokers from lighting up.

UAE daily The National reported on Thursday that as the country beefs up its smoking ban, it also plans for mandatory licenses for cigarette vendors and banning cigarette sales near schools.

The country issued a law in January to prohibit smoking in most public areas. The anti-smoking legislation also requires all tobacco products carry health warnings, bans their advertisement and makes selling products to anyone under 18 illegal.

Wedad al-Maidoor, head of the National Tobacco Control Committee, told the newspaper that the law should have a huge impact on the availability of cigarettes once it is implemented.

“We are very pleased to be at this stage,” she was quoted as saying in the newspaper on Thursday. “The final implementation will be discussed next month, so we hope it will be done soon. It will involve many authorities to ensure it is done properly and people comply.”

UAE officials are still working on details about how the anti-smoking law will be implemented and who will ensure that it is enforced.

Cigarette pack health warnings ‘could encourage people to keep smoking’

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Cigarette pack health warningsAccording to a study, smokers who are continunally confronted with warnings that cigarettes kill actually develop coping mechanisms to justify continuing their habit.

Comparatively, if smokers are shown warnings suggesting the habit could make them unattractive, they are more likely to give up. Teenagers who took up the habit to impress or fit in with their peers were more likely to be influenced by warnings about their appearance, the study found.

“In general, when smokers are faced with death-related anti-smoking messages on cigarette packs, they produce active coping attempts as reflected in their willingness to continue the risky smoking behaviour,” the study said.

“To succeed with anti-smoking messages on cigarette packs one has to take into account that considering their death may make people smoke.”

The study from the United States, Switzerland and Germany, led by Jochim Hansen of New York University and the University of Basel, asked 39 psychology students who said they were smokers, aged between 17 -41.

Participants filled in a questionnaire determining how much their smoking was based on self-esteem, before being shown cigarette packets with different warnings on them. Half of them read warnings such as “Smoking leads to deadly lung cancer”, while the other half had warnings about attractiveness.

After a 15-minute delay the students were asked more questions about their smoking behaviour and if they intended to quit.

The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, found that cigarette packets with death-related warnings were not effective and even caused more positive smoking attitudes.

“On the other hand, warning messages that were unrelated to death effectively reduced smoking attitudes the more recipients based their self-esteem on smoking.

“This finding can be explained by the fact that warnings such as ‘Smoking brings you and the people around you severe damage’ and ‘Smoking makes you unattractive’ may be particularly threatening to people who believe the opposite, namely that smoking allows them to feel valued by others or to boost their positive self-image.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “Health warnings on tobacco packaging have played an important role in helping smokers understand the risks of tobacco use and where to get help to quit. Research from around the world has shown that different people react to different types of messages to motivate them to attempt to quit.

“In October 2008, the UK was the first nation in the European Union to introduce graphic picture warnings to cigarette packets that showed smokers the grim reality of the effects smoking can have on their health. We are now currently working with the European Commission to develop new pictorial warnings for tobacco packaging, including testing different types of messages with smokers.”

Japan Tobacco to raise UK prices by 10p-12p a pack

Friday, November 13th, 2009

LONDON, – Japan Tobacco is to take advantage of the growing popularity of its British cigarette brands, such as number one seller Mayfair, by raising the price of a 20-pack by 10-12 pence from Nov. 24.

‘The momentum is with us, the wind is behind us, and we should harvest that,’ UK managing director of JT International Daniel Torras told reporters on Wednesday, adding higher tobacco leaf costs were behind the price rises.

The maker of Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut cigarettes in Britain said market share gains had prompted it to go ahead with price rises of nearly 3 percent now, as it looks to take the lead on pricing from arch-rival Imperial Tobacco.

‘Our goal is to be number one in the UK and we expect to close the gap over the next few years,’ Torras said.

Rivals including Imperial and British American Tobacco said they had no plans to follow the price rises.

Japan Tobacco bought British cigarette company Gallaher in 2007 and the world’s third-largest cigarette maker is spending over 80 million pounds ($134 million) in the four years to 2011 to boost market share in Britain, one of its top five markets.

Torras said JTI’s market share in Britain rose to 40.5 percent in the year to September from 39.3 percent in the prior year, while, his figures showed, Lambert & Butler maker Imperial fell to 42.6 percent from 44.0 percent.

Imperial gave a different figure on Tuesday with its annual results, saying its British market share fell to 45.3 percent in the year to September from 45.9 percent due to competition at the cheaper end of the market.

Imperial’s success over the past decade has come from its Lambert & Butler and Richmond brands as British smokers traded down to those cheaper brands, while Gallaher suffered due to the decline of its premium brands, Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut.

Torras said JTI’s increased focus on cheaper brands had seen its mid-price Mayfair beating Lambert & Butler to top spot in the British market with a monthly share of 14.4 percent in August 2009, while JTI’s Sterling was the top value for money brand ahead of Imperial’s JPS.

The price rises will add 12 pence to a pack of Sterling currently selling around 4.35 pounds ($7.28).

The value end of the market, which includes Sterling, Imperial’s JPS and Windsor Blue, and BAT’s Pall Mall, is the only sector of the British market in growth amid a slowly declining overall market.

The world’s largest cigarette group, Marlboro-maker Philip Morris International, has around 7 percent share of the British market with its products being distributed by Imperial, while No. 2 BAT has around a 6 percent share.


($1 = 0.5973 pound) ($1=.5973 Pound) Keywords: JAPANTOBACCO/BRITAIN

Cigarette Packaging Influences Teens to Buy and Try

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Cigarette PackagingPlainer cigarette packages, perceived as boring or unattractive, would make smoking much less appealing to teens, according to a new Australian study.

Even before adolescents try smoking, they have preconceived ideas about what smoking is like. They often glean these images from the appeal of a cigarette pack. Colors, images, logos and font sizes all play a part in increasing teens’ susceptibility to future tobacco use.

“We found that when branding is progressively removed from a cigarette pack, adolescents not only perceive the packs to be less attractive, they associate the brand with people who have less favorable attributes. They also assume the cigarettes have a more negative taste,” said study co-author Melanie Wakefield, Ph.D.

Wakefield is director of the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer of the Cancer Council Victoria. The study appears online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

The researchers asked parents of teens between age 14 and 17 if they would allow their children to participate in an online survey about cigarette packaging. Parents were told the survey results would help guide Australia’s tobacco control policies.

Using three popular Australian cigarette brands, the researchers looked at how adolescents perceived cigarette packs and what their expectations were about cigarette taste. The packs showed a gradual diminishment of brand information on the front and a progressively larger-sized health warning. Researchers randomly assigned each teen to rate one of 15 pack conditions.

“Although plain packs are perceived to be unattractive, we found that increasing the size of the health warning on the front further reduces the pack’s appeal,” Wakefield said. “This also includes teens who had already experienced smoking and are most likely to go on to a lifetime of regular smoking,”

“This is an important paper because it shows that graphical warning labels and plain packaging make a real difference in how adolescents perceive smoking and cigarettes,” said Stanton Glantz, Ph.D., director at the University of California-San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research.

“The study points to the need for the FDA to act quickly to impose strong, effective graphical warnings and plain packaging in the U.S. It also shows that we can expect the tobacco companies to fight effective action tooth and nail,” Glantz said.

Wakefield agreed: “If parents supported moves to strip as much branding off cigarette packs as possible, that one element of marketing that makes smoking attractive could be reduced.”


By Sharyn Alden, November 9, 2009

Graphic warnings soon to accompany cigarette packs

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Graphic images highlighting the dangers of smoking will soon be displayed on all tobacco products sold in Malta, director general of public health Ray Busuttil revealed on Tuesday.
A legal notice announcing the new regulations on tobacco packaging is expected to be issued by the end of this month, Dr Busuttil said at a press conference on EU anti-smoking campaign Help.

Health Promotion Department director Charmaine Gauci said that statistics showed that although the prevalence of smoking in Malta has been decreasing in recent years, the reverse was true among schoolchildren.

Dr Gauci noted that the smoking did not only adversely affect the lungs, but also presented numerous other problems. These include a greater susceptibility to infection, including, among others, to the pandemic H1N1 flu, she pointed out.

Stephen D’Alessandro, explaining the Help campaign, noted that addressing smoking among the young was a prime concern. Since peer pressure might pressure young people to smoke, the campaign has to address the perception that smoking is desirable, he said.

The second Help campaign, launched last May, follows the footsteps of the first campaign, which ran from 2005 to 2008, in targeting the young, illustrating the absurdity of smoking through humorous TV spots while leading them to the campaign website, www.help-eu.com, where serious advice is provided.

Its message aims to address 3 main objectives: prevention, cessation and passive smoking.

This time round, the campaign aims to be more interactive, inviting people to submit their own video tips on its website. In addition, young people have not only been the primary target of the campaign, but they have also participated in the strategy and development of the campaign.



20 October 2009 Di-ve

Graphic warnings must be used on tobacco products

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Matthew Myers , president, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, worked closely with the US Congress to draft and enact a historic new law governing the manufacturing, marketing and sale of tobacco products in the US. In New Delhi recently to discuss how the Indian government, along with civil society, can accelerate and strengthen the tobacco control movement in India, he spoke to Yamini Lohia :

How serious is tobacco addiction amongst Indian youth?

Tobacco use in India is pervasive, with over 50 per cent of adult males using tobacco. Indian youth see tobacco use as inevitable given the large number of adult role models who use tobacco. Unless we change the number of adults who use tobacco, whether it is men smoking tobacco or women chewing tobacco, tobacco use is going to be an epidemic amongst youths in India for decades to come. We have to change both simultaneously. The problem with tobacco use isn’t that youth are too immature to decide whether or not to use it. It is that tobacco use is a social norm in India and young people model their parents, encouraged by images promoted by the tobacco industry through indirect and surrogate advertising and heavy promotion at the retail outlet.

India has taken an important step in eliminating direct advertising but the tobacco industry continues to have heavy promotional imagery at the retail outlets. Walking down a street in India, you can’t go past a kiosk without seeing tobacco prominently displayed at a level that’s inconsistent with the goal of discouraging tobacco use.

What specific policy interventions does the government need to make to discourage tobacco use?

There’s a lot more that India needs to do, beginning with enforcing the new law against smoking in bars, restaurants and other locations, so that we send a different social message. Second, India took a good step forward in changing its warnings on cigarettes, beedis and other tobacco products. But it needs to dramatically increase the strength of those warnings if they’re going to be effective. It’s particularly important that graphic warnings be used in India, where such a heavy percentage of the population who use beedis and oral tobacco products can’t read.

Beedi workers are cited as the reason why anti-tobacco legislation doesn’t make headway in the country.

First, with close to a million Indians a year dying from tobacco use, most of them from using beedis, it shouldn’t be a choice between protecting the health of citizens and preserving jobs. Indeed it’s not a choice. India ought to commit itself to reducing tobacco use among all Indians and at the same time helping those who work in the beedi industry to find an alternate means of livelihood. The quickest way to reduce tobacco use would be to increase the tax on those products and then to use those funds to assist the millions of beedi workers who want to get out of beedi rolling, and help them find alternative livelihoods


5 October 2009 Indiatimes

Cigarette Branding Found to be Misleading

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Branding being used on some cigarettes may have consumers under the false impression that such products offer safer alternatives. According a study cited by the BBC, when words such as “smooth”, “silver,” or “gold” are used, people falsely believe the products are healthier and that it is easier to quit smoking with those cigarettes.

The survey looked of 1,300 participants—800 adults and 500 teens—who were shown branded and plain cigarette packages; when presented with the plainly packaged cigarettes, those surveyed no longer believed the cigarettes were healthier or easier to quit, said the BBC. The survey was conducted by researchers at the University of Nottingham, in Great Britain.

Participants were shown pairs of cigarette packs and were asked to make some comparisons between the two, such as either what they were like or were perceived to be like concerning “taste, tar levels, health risk, attractiveness, how easy they would be to give up, and how attractive they would be to someone choosing to smoke for the first time,” said the BBC. The study reveled that the participants believed that cigarettes packaged in lighter coloring was less harmful or had less tar, according to the BBC. The participants also falsely believed that when labeled with words such as “smooth,” as was the case with eight brands, that those cigarettes were less harmful, reported the BBC.

The European Union (EU), said the BBC, since 2002, has deemed it illegal for cigarette makers to use “trademarks, text or any sign to suggest that one tobacco product is less harmful than another.” The EU also bans phrases that include the words “low tar,” “light,” and “mild,” noted the BBC.

In the United States, President Barack Obama signed The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law in late June. The law will allow the federal government broad authority over tobacco products and will also allow regulators to control cigarette packaging and marketing as well as how much nicotine—the addictive component in cigarettes—is added in tobacco products, explained the Washington Post previously. By July 2010, verbiage including the words “light,” “low,” or “mild” will be banned from tobacco product marketing in the US and must “carry larger and stronger warning labels,” among other restrictions according to a prior USA Today report.

Portions of the law are being fought by some cigarette makers in the US in court—such as . R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and Lorillard Inc.—arguing that 1st amendment issues were not appropriately addressed. Proponents of the law cite the hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in health care linked to cigarette smoking annually.

Professor David Hammond, of the Department of Health Studies and Gerontology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, said: “The truth is that all cigarettes are equally hazardous, regardless of what colour the pack is or what words appear on it. These tactics are giving consumers a false sense of reassurance that simply does not exist,” quoted the BBC.


Cigarette branding ‘misleading’

Monday, September 7th, 2009

cigarettes brandsSubtle branding on cigarette packets is misleading smokers into believing some products are less harmful than others, research suggests.Products branded “smooth”, “silver” or “gold” are generally believed to be healthier and easier to give up, a survey of 1,300 people found.

But when shown plain packs the false beliefs disappeared, University of Nottingham researchers discovered.

EU rules ban any claims that some cigarettes are safer than others.

Participants in the study were shown pairs of cigarette packs and asked to compare what they were like, or what they assumed they would be like, in terms of taste, tar levels, health risk, attractiveness, how easy they would be to give up and how attractive they would be to someone choosing to smoke for the first time.

Plain packaging would prevent tobacco manufacturers from providing consumers with information about products that are legally available in retail outlets
Christopher Ogden, Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association

The results from 800 adult smokers and 500 teenagers, all in the UK, also showed that lighter-coloured packaging led people to believe the cigarettes had a lower tar content or were generally less harmful.

More than half of adults and teenagers reported that among the eight brands they were shown those labelled “smooth” were less harmful than the regular variety.

Marlboro packs with a gold label were rated as having a lower health risk by 53% of adults and easier to quit by 31%, when compared with the Marlboro packs with a red logo.

When shown packs where the branding had been removed, false beliefs about the risk of harm or addiction dropped significantly.

Restrictions

Since 2002 it has been illegal under EU legislation for manufacturers to use trademarks, text or any sign to suggest that one tobacco product is less harmful than another.

Banned phrases include “low tar”, “light” and “mild”.

In the UK, the Liberal Democrats are currently trying to reintroduce an amendment to the Health Bill to further restrict branding and designs on packs.

Writing in the European Journal of Public Health, the researchers said the regulations were failing to remove “potentially misleading” information from cigarettes.

Professor David Hammond, from the Department of Health Studies and Gerontology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, said: “The truth is that all cigarettes are equally hazardous, regardless of what colour the pack is or what words appear on it.

“These tactics are giving consumers a false sense of reassurance that simply does not exist.”

Christopher Ogden, chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, said it did not believe proposals for plain packaging were based on sound public policy or compelling evidence.

“Plain packaging would prevent tobacco manufacturers from providing consumers with information about products that are legally available in retail outlets.

“Adult smokers use packaging to identify, obtain information about and choose tobacco products, easily and without confusion.”

He added the evidence in support of mandatory plain packaging was “speculative”.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, said the research showed all tobacco products should be sold in plain packaging.

“That would remove false beliefs about different brands and communicate the message that all cigarettes are dangerous.

“This matter has been discussed by Parliament and there is now a perfect opportunity to include a requirement for plain packaging of tobacco products in the Health Bill.”

Cigarette Packaging May Still Mislead Consumers

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

NEW YORK – While many countries have banned terms like “light” and “low-tar” from cigarette packs, other aspects of the products’ packaging may also be misleading consumers, a new study suggests.

Studies have shown that long-used terms like “light,” “mild” and “low- tar” confuse many consumers into thinking that so-described cigarettes carry lower health risks. Dozens of countries have now banned tobacco companies from using the terms on cigarette packs.

But in the new study, Canadian researchers found that other packaging details — words like “smooth” and “silver,” and even the color of the pack — influence consumers’ perceptions of a brand’s health risks.

The findings suggest that current regulations are not going far enough to remove misleading elements from cigarette packs, the researchers report in the Journal of Public Health.

One remedy would be to require “plain packaging,” free of logos and other brand imagery, write David Hammond and Carla Parkinson of the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

“Plain-packaging regulations came very close to being implemented in Canada in the early 1990s, and they are receiving serious consideration in several other countries at the moment,” Hammond noted in an email correspondence to Reuters Health.

The tobacco industry is opposed to such measures, which is not surprising, Hammond noted, since packaging is a key marketing tool, particularly in countries where other forms of tobacco advertising are restricted.

And a cigarette pack’s appearance does seem to influence many consumers’ perceptions, Hammond and Parkinson found.

For their study, the researchers had 312 smokers and 291 non-smokers look at cigarette packs that had been specifically designed for the study. Participants viewed the packs in pairs, with the two products differing in one element of package design.

Overall, the study found, 80 percent of participants thought that the product labeled “smooth” carried fewer health risks than the one labeled “regular.” Similarly, when they viewed products labeled as either “silver” or “full-flavored,” 73 percent thought the “silver”

product was less hazardous.

Even numbers included as part of the brand-name influenced perceptions. Eighty-four percent of participants thought the product that included a “6″ in the name was less risky than another product labeled with a “10.”

Color also mattered. More than three-quarters of the men and women thought that the light-blue pack they viewed carried fewer risks than its dark-blue counterpart.

While the tobacco industry opposes the notion of plain packaging, Hammond said he is “confident” it will be a reality in the next five years — likely with one country setting the precedent, and others quickly following suit.

Ultimately, Hammond said, the public may look back at today’s cigarette packaging in the same way they now view the practice of having smoking sections on airplanes.

“People will wonder how such a lethal product was ever allowed to be sold in packages with pictures of flowers and pretty coloring that appeal to young people and provide false reassurance to consumers about the risks of smoking,” he explained.


SOURCE: Journal of Public Health, online July 27, 2009.

Cigarette Labels Get Graphic

Friday, August 7th, 2009

No more gentle warnings from cigarette packs. New labels are set to include gruesome color photographs showing a cancer-ridden mouth, blackened lungs, and a foot rotten with gangrene to drive home the dangers of smoking, the Washington Post reported.

Under the new the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, tobacco companies must cover 50% of the front and rear panels of cigarette packages with color graphics showing what happens when you smoke, and must include bold labels with direct information, such as “WARNING: Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease;” “WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children;” “WARNING: Smoking can kill you.”

Why the change? Critics have long dismissed U.S. labeling as ineffective, while other countries have been sporting bold warnings and images on their cigarettes that have been hailed as effective. Canada started the gruesome label trend in 2000 with a label that showed a picture of mouth cancer. “It’s the one that smokers remember more than anything else. Even after nine years,” David Hammond, a researcher from the Department of Health Studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario told the Washington Post. Since that time, more than two dozen countries have started offering similar warning labels.

Malaysia’s cigarette packs feature a photo of a diseased lung; packs in Brazil depict a dead fetus lying near cigarette butts; and Thailand’s have an image of a man with a hole in his throat, to warn about throat cancer.

“Every piece of research that I’ve seen with smokers tells us that smokers think that [image warnings] are more effective,” Hammond said. “U.S. smokers and consumers are getting worse health information than almost any other smoker in the world.”

Hammond does not think cigarette makers will fight the new rule, because lawsuits in other countries have failed.


© Csdecisions

Color, Description Of Cigarette Packets Trick Smokers

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Seemingly innocent details of cigarette packaging, such as color, can trick a smoker into believing the cigarettes inside are somehow less harmful to their health, according to a recent study.

Conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada, the study found you do not need words like “light,” “mild,” and “low-tar,” which have been banned from cigarette packets in more than 40 countries, to mislead a consumer.

Tobacco companies are using design elements and color to give smokers a false sense of safety regarding the harmful effects of smoking.

“Substantial proportions of adults in the study associated perceptions of risk and tar delivery with package design,” the study’s authors wrote.

In the study, specially designed cigarette packets were given in pairs to some 600 smokers and non-smokers. They were then questioned about their perception of the content of the packets based on the packaging alone.

Though the packets were designed to look and feel like real cigarettes, the brand names were completely fictional in order to avoid “contaminations” and to make sure the opinions were not based on prior assumptions about the product.

The two packs of cigarettes shown to participants in the study were identical, apart from their descriptions as “full flavored”, “light”, or a design element like color. Each pack also showed a health warning, which is required under Canadian law.

Around 80 percent of participants in the study believed that cigarettes in the light blue packet contained less tar, would have a smoother taste, and be less dangerous to health than those in dark blue packaging, the researchers said.

They also found that 70 percent of study participants thought a packet with a white symbol would deliver less tar, be smoother and pose less of a health threat than cigarettes in a packet with a grey symbol.

And 7 out of every 10 participants believed cigarettes in packets showing the words “charcoal filter” with a picture of the filter, would truly deliver that benefit.

What is equally interesting is the fact that smokers were more susceptible to deception by imagery, words, and color of cigarette packages than non-smokers because “they have greater incentive to believe that some cigarettes may be less harmful,” the study found.

The study noted that tobacco use is responsible for one in 10 deaths across the globe and is currently the leading cause of preventable deaths.

The tobacco industry considers “rising levels of health concern” as a major threat to its success, therefore it has focused in on it has made restoring consumer confidence about the risks associated with smoking “an important function of tobacco marketing,” the study said.

“A central feature of this marketing strategy has been to promote the perception that some cigarettes are less hazardous than others,” wrote the authors of the study David Hammond and Carla Parkinson.

They said that tobacco packaging “has served as a critical medium for shaping perceptions of consumer risk.”

In 44 countries, including the United States, the words “light,” “mild,” and “low-tar,” have been banned on cigarette packages, because they mislead consumers about the health risks of smoking, the study says.

The authors want the list of prohibited words to be expanded and for plain packaging to be required in order to keep the tobacco industry from misleading smokers.

“There is growing evidence that the removal of brand imagery from packaging — so-called ‘plain’ packaging — reduces the appeal of brands and increases the salience of health warnings,” the study says.

“Research to date suggests that plain packages are less attractive and engaging and may reduce brand appeal, particularly among youth.”

The study was published in the Oxford University Press Journal of Public Health.


© Redorbit

Cigarette Boxes Bear Graphic Evidence of Smoking’s Ill Effects

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Coming soon to the lives of American smokers: cigarette labels that go far beyond a simple warning.

Imagine gruesome color photographs showing a mouth riddled with cancer, lungs blackened, a foot rotten with gangrene. If the images sound sickening, well, that’s the point.

Under a law signed by President Obama on June 22 — the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act — tobacco companies will be required to cover 50 percent of the front and rear panels of cigarette packages with color graphics showing what happens when you smoke and bold, specific labels saying such things as:

“WARNING: Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease.”

“WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children.”

“WARNING: Smoking can kill you.”

The first U.S.-mandated label in 1965 tentatively suggested “Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health.” Although the language changed over time, critics have long dismissed U.S. labeling as anemic and ineffective.

Indeed, the inspiration for the new labeling standards comes from abroad. Canada started the trend in 2000 with a label that showed a picture of mouth cancer. “It’s the one that smokers remember more than anything else. Even after nine years,” says David Hammond, a researcher from the Department of Health Studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Since then, he says, more than two dozen countries have picked up on the idea.
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A sampling of how explicit the labels can be: Malaysia’s cigarette packs bear a photo of a diseased lung; some in Brazil show a dead fetus lying near cigarette butts; Thailand’s show a person with a hole in his throat, to warn about throat cancer; in New Zealand, it’s a gangrenous foot.

Compare these with the American warning label, which has not changed since 1985: no images, and only a small-type surgeon general’s warning that states: “smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth and low birth weight.”

“Every piece of research that I’ve seen with smokers tells us that smokers think that [pictorial warnings] are more effective,” Hammond says. “U.S. smokers and consumers are getting worse health information than almost any other smoker in the world.”

While it is true that smoking rates in the United States are lower than in other countries — about 20 to 22 percent of the adult American population smokes — experts have long argued that a more powerful message would have a far greater impact on smoking habits.


© Washingtonpost