Cigarette packs are going to get really ugly soon
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Three examples of proposed warning graphics that will appear on cigarette packaging as part of the government's new tobacco prevention efforts. -
Photos such as this are being considered as new graphic warnings proposed for cigarette packs.
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Smoke puffing through a tracheostomy tube in a man's neck. A corpse with surgical staples like train tracks down his chest. Stained and misshapen teeth above a cancerous lip lesion.
The cigarette warning label is moving into the 21st century, and it ain't a pretty picture.
The Food and Drug Administration Wednesday released prototype images for new tobacco warning labels, which will take up about half the package and include graphic images depicting negative health consequences of smoking.
The new labels are required by a federal law passed last year which gave control over tobacco regulation to the Food & Drug Administration. Cigarette labels were last updated more than 25 years ago.
The 36 labels proposed Wednesday will be whittled to nine final labels by June, and cigarette companies must display them on their packaging by Oct. 22, 2012.
But in an age where the dangers of smoking are not exactly a secret, will an ugly picture and harsh language actually deter prospective smokers or convince current smokers to quit?
"The warning labels are a dramatic change," said Danny McGouldrick, vice president for research at the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. "I don't think there's any question from the literature that they are noticed -- that they do a better job of educating people about risk and about motivating them to quit."
In Canada, which introduced graphic warning labels in 2001, a study by the Canadian Cancer Society found that smokers who quit after that date were more 2.78 times more likely to cite package warnings as a factor in their decision than smokers who quit in the two years before the pictorial warnings.
One study of Australian smokers found that adolescent smokers thought more about quitting after the introduction of their graphic warning labels.
First Published November 11, 2010 12:00 am
