‘Poison in every puff’ under warnings to be printed on Canadian cigarettes
TORONTO — “Poison in every hit.” “Cigarettes cause impotence.” “Tobacco smoke harms children.”
Those are the warnings smokers in Canada will soon find on every cigarette they light, as the country kicks off a plan requiring tobacco companies to print health warnings directly on cigarette filters.
The labels will appear in English and French, Canada’s official languages, and aim to dilute the appeal of smoking among young people, adults who want to quit and those addicted to nicotine, the government said on Wednesday.
Canada is a world leader in tackling tobacco use through health risk labels. Graphic illustrations of some of the health effects of smoking, such as images of cancerous growths or decaying teeth, have appeared on cigarette boxes in Canada since 2001, when it became the first country to feature images of serious smoking-related illnesses on packages. It was also the first country to ban smoking on domestic flights, followed by international flights on Canadian airlines in 1994.
Smoking is declining in Canada and the country’s health services are striving to reduce it even further. Currently, 10.2 percent of people over the age of 15 smoke cigarettes, and the government’s goal is to reduce that to less than 5 percent by 2035.
Within a year, smokers will begin to see the new labels on their individual cigarettes, as well as an updated warning label on cigarette boxes.
“We are taking action by becoming the first country in the world to label individual cigarettes with health warnings,” Carolyn Bennett, Canada’s minister of mental health and addictions, said in a statement. “This bold move will make health warnings all but inevitable, and along with updated packaging graphics, will be a real and surprising reminder of the health consequences of smoking.”
Research suggests that these kinds of labels can be helpful. A study published in 2006 among 9,000 adult smokers in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia found that people who took notice of the warnings were more aware of the specific health risks of smoking. a meta-analysis published in 2015 analyzing data from several studies found that warning labels evoked negative attitudes towards smoking and increased people’s intention to quit smoking or not to start; however, image warnings were more effective than text warnings.
Decades ago there was once extreme opposition to the labeling policy, but some tobacco companies, at least publicly, support the new move. Rothmans, Benson and Hedges, the Canadian subsidiary of tobacco company Philip Morris International, said they supported the Canadian directive when the government announced its plans for the new regulation last June.
Under the expanded labeling, people who smoke one pack a day would see anti-smoking messages at least 7,300 times and even more when taking each puff into account, said Geoffrey Fong, a psychology professor at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, and principal investigator with the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project.
“There are no public health messages or messages of any kind that have such an exposure,” Professor Fong said. “There’s a lot of potential for these deterrent warning labels, deterrent cigarettes, to have an impact.”
Estimates about the number of smokers in the country vary, but according to the facts published last August by the Canadian Census Bureau, there are 3.8 million daily and occasional smokers over the age of 12. About 48,000 Canadians die each year from smoking, the health agency said.
Dana G Smith contributed reporting from Durham, NC