“Poison in every puff.” “Cigarettes cause impotence.” “Tobacco smoke
harms children.”
Those are the warnings that smokers in Canada will soon find
on every single cigarette they light, as the country sets into motion a plan
requiring tobacco companies to print health warnings directly onto cigarette
filters.
اضافة اعلان
The labels will appear in English and French, Canada’s
official languages, and are intended to blunt the allure of smoking among young
people, adults looking to quit and those addicted to nicotine, the government
said Wednesday.
A global reader in targeting tobacco
Canada is a global leader in targeting tobacco use through
health hazard labels. Graphic illustrations of some of the health outcomes of
smoking, such as images of cancerous tumors or decaying teeth, have appeared on
cigarette boxes in Canada since 2001, when it became the first country to
feature depictions of serious smoking-related illnesses on packaging.
It was also the first country to ban smoking on its domestic
flights, followed by international flights on Canadian airlines in 1994.
Smoking is on the decline in Canada, and the country’s
health services aim to reduce it even further. Currently, 10.2 percent of
people older than 15 smoke cigarettes, and the government’s goal is to reduce
that to less than 5 percent by 2035.
Within the next year, smokers will begin to see the new
labels printed on their individual cigarettes, as well as an updated warning
label on cigarette boxes.
“We are taking action by being the first country in the
world to label individual cigarettes with health warning messages,” Carolyn
Bennett, Canada’s minister of mental health and addictions, said in a statement.
“This bold step will make health warning messages virtually unavoidable, and
together with updated graphic images displayed on the package, will provide a
real and startling reminder of the health consequences of smoking.”
Research suggests these types of labels can be helpful. One
study published in 2006 of 9,000 adult smokers in Canada, the United States,
the United Kingdom and Australia found that people who noticed the warnings had
greater awareness of specific health risks associated with smoking. A
meta-analysis published in 2015 that analyzed data from several studies found
that warning labels evoked negative attitudes toward smoking and increased
people’s intentions either to quit smoking or not start smoking; however, image
warnings were more effective than text warnings.
Pushback against labeling policies
There was once extreme pushback against labeling policies
decades ago, but some tobacco companies, at least publicly, are endorsing the
new move. Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, the Canadian subsidiary of tobacco
company Philip Morris International, said it supported Canada’s directive when
the government announced its plans for the new regulations in June last year.
Under the expanded labeling, people who smoke one pack per
day would see anti-smoking messages at least 7,300 times annually and even more
when accounting for each puff, said Geoffrey Fong, a psychology professor at
the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, and principal investigator at the
International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project.
“There are no public health messages or messages of any kind
that have that type of exposure,” Fong said. “There’s a lot of potential for
these dissuasive warning labels, dissuasive cigarettes, to be impactful.”
Estimates on the number of smokers in the country vary, but
according to the data published in August by Canada’s census agency, there are
3.8 million daily and occasional smokers older than 12. About 48,000 Canadians
die from smoking each year, the health agency said.
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