Canada finalizes new cigarette health warnings…and the US lags behind
Canada announced the finalization of regulations to require the new set of health warnings on packages of cigarettes and little cigars. The warnings will increase in size from 50% to 75% and go into effect by mid-2012. The new requirements include
- A set of 16 new package picture-based health warnings, with an increase in warning size from 50 per cent to 75 per cent of the package front and back (positioned at the top of the front and back).
- The use of testimonials, notably warnings featuring images of real cancer victims
- The addition of a toll-free quit line number and a web address to the warning messages.
- For the first time, warnings about certain health effects, e.g. bladder cancer and vision loss, are included.
- A set of eight new full-colour picture-based messages appearing inside the package. Canada is the only country in the world to require messages inside the package in addition to the exterior.
- An improved set of four text-only toxic emission messages that will appear in rotation on the side of the package, to replace the existing message. Machine-based yield numbers for tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, benzene will be removed from the side panel, and replaced with descriptive statements without yield numbers.
Uruguay currently has the largest cigarette package health warnings in the world, at 80% of the package front and back. Australia has announced (but not yet finalized) proposed warnings that would cover 75% of the front, and 90% of the back of the package (for an average of 82.5%), with an implementation date of July 1, 2012. See the at the Canadian government website here.
Meanwhile, in the US tobacco companies continue to thwart public health efforts to require graphic warning labels on the top 50 percent of the front and back of all cigarette packs starting in September 2012. On September 20, a US District Court judge heard arguments in the suit filed by tobacco companies against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s graphic warning labels for cigarette packs that were announced in June. The judge plans to make a decision by the end of October.
See “Tobacco Companies Urge US Judge To Delay Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels,” The Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2011