Canada launches warning labels on each cigarette
Canada launches warning labels on each cigarette
Canada is the first nation to use warnings on individual cigarettes in an effort to deter smoking.
Canada will be the first nation to start printing warnings directly onto individual cigarettes in a bid to deter young people from starting smoking and encourage others to quit.
The warnings, which will be in English and French, will include phrases like "Cigarettes cause cancer" and "Poison in every puff".
The new regulations go into effect on Tuesday.
Starting next year, Canadians will begin to see the new warning labels.
By July 2024 manufacturers will have to ensure the warnings are on all king-size cigarettes sold, and by April 2025 all regular-size cigarettes and little cigars with tipping paper and tubes must include the warnings.
The phrases will appear by the filter, including warnings about harming children, damaging organs and causing impotence and leukaemia.
In May, Health Canada said the new regulations "will make it virtually impossible to avoid health warnings" on tobacco products.
A second set of six phrases is expected to be printed on cigarettes in 2026.
The move is part of Canada's effort to reduce tobacco use to less than 5% by 2035 and follows a 75-day public consultation period that was launched last year.
Canada has required the printing of warning labels on cigarette packages since 1989 and in 2000 the country adopted pictorial warning requirements for tobacco product packages.
Health Canada said it plans to expand on warnings by printing additional warning labels inside the packages themselves, and introducing a new external warning messages.
Dr Robert Schwartz, of the University of Toronto, told BBC News it was good news that Canada was "moving forward with this innovation".
"Health warnings on individual cigarettes will likely push some people who smoke to make a quit attempt and may prevent some young people from starting to smoke," he said.
He also pointed to New Zealand, which has introduced very low nicotine cigarettes, as a leader in limiting the use of tobacco.
Mr Schwartz added: "These are the kinds of measures needed if we are serious about decreasing tobacco use."
Tobacco use continues to kill 48,000 Canadians each year.
"Tobacco use continues to be one of Canada's most significant public health problems, and is the country's leading preventable cause of disease and premature death in Canada," Public Services Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has previously said.
The Canadian Cancer Society, Canada's Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Lung Association have all praised the warning labels, saying they hope the measures will deter people, especially young people, from taking up smoking in the first place.
Cigarette smoking is widely regarded as a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke.
In Canada, the rate of smokers aged 15 years or older is around 10%, according to a national 2021 Tobacco and Nicotine survey but electronic cigarette use has been on the rise.
Back when I was a smoker they could have written on them that it kills a baby every time i take a puff.
I would not have cared.
They article mention it's more about discouraging teens from starting smoking than making current smokers quit.
It kind of make sense since you start smoking by receiving a single cigarette not by buying a pack. I know at my high school a lot of smokers started smoking by buying individual smoke from the smoke pusher
True.
What would have keept me most from starting to smoke would have been the price.
I mean. A pack of cigarettes is now around 8 swiss francs. Was half that when I started.
I am not sure wether it would be worth that much money for me back when I started when it would have been already as expensive as it is today.
Luckily I found vaping to get me of nicotine. And then stopped all together when I lost my vape pen.
Seems like you could market a line with even worse statements on it:
"This cigarette kills babies"
Bold of them to assume smokers want to live.
At that point, let's just force people to smoke in specific areas where they are forced to listen to Nickelback.
Only one song, everywhere. What's new pussy cat
There's no way the ink doesn't make them even worse. I've always loved Canada's over the top approach to visually discouraging smoking by hijacking half the pack with a picture. My favorite when I smoked cigarettes was the one with the kids giving you a judgemental look.
Given the numbers in this article, though, I'm not sure how well it's working.
If you don't want people smoking, just grow some testicles and ban it. You'll probably take a hit in popularity at the next election and lose some money in tax revenue, but people will swap to vapes and you'll save a load of money on lung cancer treatments and street sweepers.
At this point everyone is well aware that they're bad for you. More warnings isn't going to do a thing. Nobody is going to get one of these new printed ones and go "Oh, I didn't know that!" and stop.
Right, that's worked so well for every other substance that has been banned. Surely the most addictive drug known to most people will go just as well!
There was probably a nicer way to have said this.
Phasing it out, a la only people who are above 18 right now can buy, might hurt less
Never Knows Best.
What is with this liberal bullshit of not just banning the sell of cigarettes? Not banning smoking, if you want to grow tobacco go for it. If you and other like-minded people want to create cigarettes and smoke them, go for it. But you can't buy cigarettes at stores anymore.
You can also ban the importation of tobacco and cigarettes.
This would only create an underground market for it, and if we've learned anything at this point, those underground markets are impossible to regulate and often are more dangerous and risky to the user.
Legal sales and regulating it is usually much more effective.
Yea I'm not saying we ban cigarettes, I'm saying you can't mass manufacture them anymore nor sell them retail. I'm not saying people can't smoke them. What you describe as "underground" is just artisanal, which is 100% fine because the real effect it will have is reduce smoking to a fraction of what happens today.
For context in Canada there are about 1.5billion cigarettes sold per month. If you ban retail sales, and force smaller scales, you absolutely decimate that number which is much more effective then any other bullshit neo-liberal policiy you can come up with.
That's so cool. I might buy a pack for the first time in years.
Lol
If putting diseased lungs on cartons and boxes didn't do it, what the fuck makes them think this will? Such a waste of time. Lol
If only they took heart disease this seriously.
like that's gonna do shit